Guardian (10 page)

“He said ‘the Machine,’” Marie repeated. “Why would he say that?”

“I told you, he’s been like this for days.”

“Brindle,” her father said. “Talk to Brindle.”

“Brindle?” Liam wondered.

“That was Knox’s last name,” said Syd. “He means Knox’s father?”

The man nodded.

“He knows more about the Guardians than anyone,” said Syd. “If this started with them, he’ll know what it is. He’ll know how to stop it.”

“He’s in prison awaiting execution,” said Liam. “We can’t just walk in there.”

“We have to,” said Syd. “Look at this. We have to find out what’s going on.”

Liam shook his head. “You don’t think the Council will have their own doctors working on it?”

Marie stood up from her parents. She spoke in a whisper. “We have to take this to the Council. We can’t handle this ourselves. They’ll know what to do.”

“They won’t do anything,” Syd told her. “They want these people—your parents—to disappear. Until it starts affecting people they care about, they won’t do anything to stop it.”

“Counselor Baram is not like that and you know it,” she said. “He’ll listen.”

“You do what you want,” said Syd. “Liam and I are going to the prison.”

“We’re not,” said Liam.

“Nothing’s changed,” Syd told him. “I can still have you reassigned to—”

“Fine,” Liam snapped. He didn’t want this argument. He just wanted Syd out of here, somewhere safer. A Reconciliation prison would be far safer than this co-op. At least there, Yovel would be respected. At least there, no one would carry this infection. “We’ll go. But that’s it. After that, we’re done taking unauthorized trips. And”—he met Syd’s eyes.
Might as well take a risk
—“you’ll ask me nicely.”

“What?” Syd scoffed.

“You heard me.” Liam crossed his arms. “I’ll help you, but you can’t just order me around. Ask me.”

“Ask you?” Syd raised an eyebrow, studied Liam. The bodyguard stood firm, met Syd’s eyes, and waited. He might have puppy dog eyes, but he wasn’t going to let Syd treat him like a dog. “Fair enough,” said Syd. “Will you take me to the prison to visit Knox’s father?”

Liam didn’t move.

“Please?” Syd added.

Liam’s face cracked a smile. “I will,” he said, then he gestured for Syd to walk beside him from the stench of the sickhouse, into the sunlight.

Syd looked back at Marie’s parents, but couldn’t think of a thing to say, so he let Liam lead him out.

“I’ll be back soon,” Marie told her mother. “Take care of each other. Help will come. I will make sure of it.”

She stood to go, making sure to give each of her parents a hug first.

Before she made her way back to the Council and Liam and Syd went to the prison, they needed to have a word with the young Purifier outside.

“We have to get back to the city quickly,” she told Tom. “So we’re taking your tractor.”

“But how am I supposed to get out of here? Walk?”

Syd shook his head. “You aren’t going anywhere, Tom.”

They explained the situation as clearly as they could: He was going to look after the sick people until help arrived, doing all he could serve and comfort them, or he would wake up from his next nap to Liam’s hand on his throat.

Liam clenched the metal fist in front of young Tom’s face.

Syd admired his bodyguard’s sense of theatricality. He hoped that was all it was, but he realized, despite all the months with Liam watching his every move, he knew almost nothing about his bodyguard. He didn’t, however, seem like the type to make empty threats.

“Don’t let us down, Tom,” Syd added as a word of encouragement. “We’re counting on you. Everyone is counting on you.”

Tom liked the sound of that, but as they drove away on their commandeered tractor, they heard him calling after them.

“Wait! But . . . I don’t know anything about being a nurse! Guys? How am I supposed to help? I don’t know how to help.”

That makes two of us,
thought Syd.

“SO THE GREAT AND
powerful Yovel comes to pay a condemned man a visit?” Knox’s father grinned a gap-toothed grin.

Eeron Brindle, the once-towering executive in charge of SecuriTech, looked like a ghost of himself. His cheeks were sunken, his eyes yellowed, and his hands trembled against his thighs. The black web of veins showed through his skin, but he did not scratch at them.

He knelt on the floor of his cell in front of Syd. A chain bolted to the wall attached to a metal collar around his neck. The cell was primitive, a cinder-block room in a building that hadn’t been built as a prison, but the door to the cell was new, a pressure-piston-locking mechanism in a reinforced frame. There was a window, looking out over the jungle, crisscrossed with graphene wiring embedded in the plexi. Those little threads made the window even more impenetrable than the door. That was the idea. The condemned should have a view of the world outside, with no hope of ever being a part of it again.

In spite of the unbreakable window, the powerful door, the chain around his neck, and the prisoner’s fragility, Liam stood beside Syd with his bolt gun in his hand. He would take no chances.

“Do you know why the Guardians are sick?” Syd asked.

Knox’s father snorted.

“Do you?” Syd repeated.

“I know why everyone is sick,” he said. “But I do not know why you’ve come out here to see me.”

“Do you know how to stop it?” Syd continued.

“I get so few visitors,” Knox’s father talked over Syd. “I never realized how much I enjoyed conversation until I was denied it. I was never a people person, not like my son. I guess you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. Isn’t that what they say? Or do they say you don’t know what’s gone until you’ve got it? That hardly makes any sense, no? My memory’s not what it was . . .”

He stared back at them, like he’d lost the thread of what he was saying. Liam shifted his feet. The old man had lost it. Syd knew it too, but he didn’t dare look at Liam for confirmation. He couldn’t bear the thought that this trip out to the prison was pointless, that he wouldn’t learn anything, that he couldn’t save anyone. That he’d have to crawl to the Council and beg them to help. Yovel the great.

He was not ready to give up yet. He could still fix things.

“Just answer me,” Syd said.

“Conversation is an exchange, Syd,” Knox’s father said. “It’s a deal people make with each other. Call and response, verse and chorus, question and answer, action and reaction. It makes the world go round and round and round.”

“Do you know how to stop this sickness?” Syd said again.

“What I am trying to explain,” Eeron Brindle told him, “is that a conversation is a transaction and each side must have something of value to trade.”

“There’s no credit anymore,” said Syd. “It wouldn’t do you any good anyway.”

“Not money!” he shouted, rattling his chain and swaying from side to side. “Words! Trade words with me, you glitch-brained Chapter Eleven swampcat!”

“Hey!” Liam point a metal finger at Knox’s father. “You are speaking to Yovel and you will speak with respect.”

“Apologies. Apologies. Don’t knock more of my teeth out. Those I have left I intend to take to the grave.” He laughed again.

Liam shook his head. “This bloodsucker is a waste of time.”

“I’ll trade words with you,” said Syd. “What words would you like?”

Knox’s father leaned forward so that the collar squeezed his neck, turned his face red. He whispered to Syd, “Tell me about my son.”

Syd leaned back. “What?”

“You heard me.” Knox’s father nodded. “Tell me about my son and I will tell you about this sickness. They complement each other, I should think.”

Syd bit his lip. His voice came out hoarse. “What do you want me to tell you?”

Eeron Brindle’s eyes darted from side to side, then he looked at Syd. “Did he hate me?”

“Yes,” said Syd.

Knox’s father nodded. “Only natural, I suppose.”

“So . . . this disease? What is it?”

“It’s not a disease,” Eeron Brindle said.

“But I’ve seen it,” Syd replied. “It’s killing Guardians and now it’s killing regular people. And it’s spreading.”

“It’s not spreading,” said Knox’s father. “It can’t spread. It simply is.”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you hate my son?”

“Tell me what you mean about this
thing
not spreading.”

“Answer my question. Did you hate my son?” A black vein on his forehead pulsed. The man winced, but was otherwise still. He waited, a man for whom patience was more powerful than pain.

“At first, yes,” said Syd.

“And later?”

“Later, no, I didn’t.” Syd pointed at the man. “Your turn.”

“Have you ever seen a syntholene addict?”

“I said it’s your turn,” Syd repeated.

“I am explaining it to you, impatient boy! I swear, you are just like . . .” He squinted, strained to find the word. “Knox,” he said at last. “Never listens.” He paused, shook his head. “Never listened. Listened. Past tense.” He scratched an itch on the back of his hand, then froze in place. Muttered to himself and dropped both hands to his side again. They quivered. “So, again. A syntholene addict. Have you seen one coming off his syntholene patches?”

“Yes,” said Syd.

“What happens to him?”

“Seizures, vomiting. Rashes.”

“Death?”

“Sometimes death, yeah,” said Syd. “What’s syntholene have to do with the Guardians?”

“Nothing at all.” Eeron Brindle laughed again. He licked his cracked lips with his pale tongue. Even it was veined with tiny blue lines.

Liam stepped forward and jabbed his metal finger into the prisoner’s chest, hard. “Speak plainly or I’ll—”

“You’ll what, boy?” Knox’s father laughed. “Torture me? There’s no new pain left for me to feel. Can’t you see that? The blood inside me burns. The moment my son died my own heartbeat turned against me. And killing me seems pointless, as I’m to be executed anyway. So what is it? Make your threats! Come on! Be creative! I’m listening!”

Liam exhaled. He wanted to crack the old man’s head open. But he stepped back.

“Good help is so hard to find, eh, Syd?” Knox’s father laughed again.

“You were saying,” said Syd. “About syntholene addicts?”

“Ah yes.” He smiled. “Withdrawal. When you take away an addict’s drug, he goes into withdrawal. Terrible sickness. Deadly if he was truly addicted for a long enough time.”

“So?”

“Did you love my son?”

Syd didn’t answer.

“It’s your turn,” Knox’s father reminded him.

“I know.”

“So? Did you love my son?”

“Not at first,” said Syd.

“And later?”

“I don’t want to talk about Knox,” said Syd.

“Oh, nor do I!” Knox’s father laughed again. “But we must, one way or another! You see, he caused all of this! When my son destroyed the datastream, he took away the drug. Like I said. When my son died, my own heartbeat turned against me. So did yours.
Everyone
was networked. Everyone had that data in their blood. Take away the data and then . . .” He cocked his head to the side, opened his arms to show off the black veins running up and down them. “The Guardians went down first. They were nothing
but
networked. The older people next, those on the networks the longest, those with the most data installed. Some have stronger resistance than others . . .” He gestured at himself. “Some will hold out longer. But, young and old, rich and poor, sinner and saint, eventually, it will take down—”

“Everyone,” Syd whispered.

“Everyone,” said Knox’s father. “It isn’t in the blood. It
is
the blood. Isn’t it i—ire—?” Knox’s father had lost the word he was looking for.

“Ironic,” Syd prompted.

“Ironic, yes.” The man scratched his neck, stopped himself, muttered something quietly. “The only way to save the revolution my son gave you is to undermine the revolution my son gave you.”

“We have to reestablish the network,” Syd said.

Liam looked back at the door to the room, worried the Purifiers outside could hear. This talk was treason.

“Is it real?” Syd asked. “Is there a machine that can do that?”

“Your turn, Sydney,” said Knox’s father with a devilish grin. “About my son.”

Syd clenched his jaw.

“Why did he do it?” Knox’s father wasn’t grinning now. “Why did he die for you? Was it to get back at me? Did he love you? Did he hate me so much? Tell me why.”

“He . . .” Syd pictured Knox, the moment before he died. They’d kissed, but it was just Knox being Knox. He didn’t love Syd, at least, not that way.

“He wanted . . . ,” Syd tried.

Syd stood in front of Knox. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Like I know?” Knox told him. “It’s your future. Choose.”

“Knox wanted—” Syd began again.

The door to the cell swung open and two Purifiers burst in. Liam whirled around and froze. With them was a third figure, his smooth skin gleaming like plastic. Cousin, his face twisted into a frown.

“My deepest apologies, Yovel.” Cousin bent at the waist in a theatrical bow. “But your visit must come to an end.”

“Who are you?” Syd demanded, stepping toward Cousin. Liam stopped him.

“I am but a servant of the Reconciliation,” said Cousin. “And our wise Advisory Council has seen fit that the time for Eeron Brindle’s execution is now.”

“What? No.” Syd looked to Knox’s father, then to Liam. “I’m not done yet.”

“Unfortunately, you are,” said Cousin. He snapped and the two Purifiers rushed past him to grab Knox’s father and lift him to his feet.

“Liam, can you stop them?” Syd asked. “Please.”

Liam didn’t move. “Syd . . . I can’t . . .”

“But you heard him,” Syd said. “He knows what’s happening. We have to make the Council listen to him. We need more time.”

“Ah, ‘we need more time.’” Cousin sighed and stepped up to rest his delicate hand on Syd’s shoulder. “And yet it never comes. The human condition itself, no?”

In a flash, Liam thrust himself between Syd and Cousin, knocking Cousin’s arm away and staring him down. “Don’t you ever lay a hand on Syd,” he snarled.

Cousin grinned. “And now we have the animal condition,” Cousin said. “Like a bitch defending her pup.”

Three more Purifiers, all of them armed with electro-muscular disruption sticks and bolt guns, entered the room. Syd recognized one of them through the holes in his mask. Finch was grinning.

“Syd,” said Liam without looking away from Cousin, “we have to go.”

“But—”

“We’ll take this to the Council,” he said. “But we can’t stay here.”

Syd looked between the two. Cousin unnerved him and his familiarity with Liam suggested a history that went far beyond today. More unnerving.

He looked to Knox’s father, who smiled at him. “I’ll give your regards to—?” His face fell. He searched for the word as two Purifiers pulled him from the room.

“Knox,” Syd whispered as Knox’s father was dragged away.

Cousin held up a hand to stop Syd and Liam leaving after them. The white-masked boys behind him raised their EMD sticks. Finch locked eyes with Syd. He pursed his lips, blew a murderous little kiss.

“Unfortunately, I can’t let you go,” Cousin said.

“You can’t hold us here,” said Syd. “I am Yovel, the—”

“Save it,” Cousin cut him off.

“But . . . this sickness . . . we can stop it,” said Syd. “He told us we can—!”

“No,” said Cousin. “You can’t.”

“But he just said”—Syd shook his head—“the Machine. There must be people left who know how to build it, how to restore that network!”

“Treason! From Yovel himself! My oh my!” Cousin laughed. “I can hardly believe my ears.”

“Cousin,” Liam seethed. “Let us go.”

“There’s no point, Brother Liam,” Cousin told him. “There’s only one person left who could’ve built this fabled Machine, and Dr. Khan, very tragically, was murdered last week.”

The color drained from Liam’s face.

“You—” Liam began. “She—?”

“Don’t hurt that tiny brain of yours,” said Cousin. “Thinking doesn’t suit you.”

“I order you to let us go,” said Syd. “On the authority of Yovel and the Advisory Council, I—”

“The Advisory Council has given me command of the Purifiers until this crisis has passed,” Cousin explained. “So I’m afraid I will not be letting you go. I am authorized to do whatever is necessary in the interest of security.” He smiled.

“The Council will hear about this,” said Syd. “You’ll be charged with treason.”

“Oh, like me?” Finch growled. Syd clenched his fists and Finch noticed with a smile. “I’ll be sure to tell the chair of the Council we made up,” he added. “Best friends forever.”

“Now, Furious,” Cousin mock-scolded him. “You know you aren’t supposed to enjoy this sort of thing.”

Finch didn’t take his eyes off Syd. “I know, sir. But I do.”

“Well, it’ll be our little secret then,” said Cousin. “These boys won’t tell, will they? They have their own secrets, after all.” He winked at Liam and with that, he and his Purifiers stepped back through the cell door and slammed it shut, sealing Syd and Liam inside.