Guardian (7 page)

OUTSIDE SYD’S DOOR, LIAM
stood at attention. Although the entire building was a restricted area, he still felt the need to be vigilant. He couldn’t disappoint the Council again. Even if Syd hated him for controlling his every movement, at least he’d be safe. That was all that mattered.

Liam wondered, though, whether that was true, whether he was being honest with himself. Did he want to protect Syd because he was important to the society they were trying to build, or did he want to protect Syd because of some childish fantasy? Was he a believer or was it something . . . else? If Syd lived and hated Liam, did it matter if Syd lived?

Of course it matters,
he told himself.
This is exactly why you cannot have these feelings. They are a distraction. You’re a soldier. Act like it.

He snapped himself back to attention. The Machinists might make another move on Syd at any time. Their fantasy of a machine that could turn the networks back on, restore the data, and undo the entire revolution might be crazy, but crazies were the most dangerous. They didn’t care about consequences. They just knew that Syd had broken the networks, so Syd’s death should bring them back. It didn’t have to be logical to be deadly.

There were other dangers too. That Purifier Syd denounced might want another shot at him. Part of Liam hoped so. It was forbidden, but he’d take his own personal pleasure in neutralizing a petty knock-off thug like Furious Finch.

But professional vigilance wasn’t the only reason Liam had to remain alert. He knew, in spite of the restrictions on this building and the secrecy under which Syd was kept, that he was not alone.

Cousin was surely watching.

That exact moment, as if conjured from the vapor of Liam’s thoughts, the hairless man appeared in a shaft of moonlight at the end of the hallway.

He moved silently, but he made no effort to conceal his approach. Liam felt as if Cousin’s shadow on the wall had more substance than the man himself. Cousin’s hands were clasped behind his back and his green uniform was crisp and spotless. His collar was a solid band of white, like a halo around his neck lighting his smooth face. His thin lips were pursed and the folds above his eyes, where his eyebrows would have been, were raised in an expression of amusement.

“Brother Liam,” he said, his voice smooth as a python slithering across the moss. “A most informative Advisory Council discussion this afternoon, no?”

Liam didn’t answer. Cousin was goading him, of course. That’s how Cousin was.

Liam exhaled through his nose and waited. He tried not to look frightened, but Cousin’s presence always frightened him. He hated to be near the man.

No one knew Cousin’s age or his origins, or even his real name. He’d arrived just after the victory of the Rebooters, when they became the Reconciliation, and he had immediately made himself useful.

“My past doesn’t matter,” he had explained, kneeling before the newly formed Advisory Council. “I am here to serve the future.”

They too were trying to erase the past, so they took him in. Cousin answered only to the Advisory Council. He had special assignments and obscure duties, some of which Liam knew, and a few of which Liam shared. Even though they had worked together for months now, Cousin still filled Liam with a cold dread. Regular people feared the Purifiers; the Purifiers feared Liam, and Liam, as much as he hated to admit it, feared Cousin.

Cousin rested a hand on Liam’s shoulder. It was surprisingly delicate and strangely small for such a tall man. Liam did his best not to flinch.

Cousin smirked. He stared directly at Liam and his pupils seemed too large, like his eyes had no color at all, just black discs in an orb of white. The tiny red veins in the eyes and the slight weathering of the skin around them were the only hints that Cousin was, indeed, human.

“Our young hero shows great concern for the fate of the nonoperatives,” Cousin observed. “If only he showed such concern for the fate of his bodyguard, eh?” He brushed Liam’s shoulder and then rested his hand against the door to Syd’s room. “You could have been punished terribly for letting him run off this morning. Do you think Syd would swoon to see you destroyed like he did for those nopes?”

Cousin spoke just loudly enough for Liam to wonder whether Syd could hear him through the door, but just quietly enough that it didn’t seem deliberate.

Liam shrugged.

“One would think mistakes like today’s would be impossible.” Cousin smiled. “Given how closely you watch him.”

“It’s over,” said Liam. “I made a mistake. I confessed to it.”

“I have always been more interested in silences than in confessions,” said Cousin.

Liam kept his mouth shut.

Cousin laughed, his face pulling away from his big white teeth. His smile was indistinguishable from a grimace. “I do appreciate your sense of humor!”

He patted Liam on the back, sucking air in through his teeth.

Looking at Cousin’s face for too long conjured violent fantasies in Liam. It was the kind of face that made a person want to throw a punch. Liam took a deep breath, thought of the waterfall, emotion flowing down and away.

“We’ve work to do tonight,” Cousin told him. He waved his hand and a holo projection appeared in the air in front of him.

Cousin was one of the few who was still allowed to use the old technology. While there was no network anymore, some databases had been rebuilt for the Reconciliation’s own purposes: recorded messages, propaganda broadcasts, surveillance. Liam was allowed to look, but not to touch.

Like so much else in his life.

The image floating in the air before him showed a woman in profile. She had long flowing braids of dark, wiry hair. Her skin was black as the smoke of burning cities. She wore a white smock over her green uniform, her hands were sealed in blue synthetic gloves, and she was working on a collection of holo projections in the air in front of her. She paused, looked straight out of the projection and spoke.

“My name is Dr. Adaeze Khan, and if you are receiving—” she began and Liam detected a Nigerian accent, but then the holo jolted and wobbled; the loop began again. She was working, focused. She turned, looked out, smiled. “My name is Dr. Adaeze Khan, and if you are receiving—” The loop started again. Cousin let it play.

“Dr. Khan,” Cousin said. “Reboot High Command, now a chief medical supervisor for the Reconciliation.”

“My name is Dr. Adaeze Khan, and if you are receiving—”

Liam cleared his throat. “Why her?”

“Tsk, tsk.” Cousin wagged his finger in the air.

“I don’t recognize her,” he said.

“Curiosity is a form of greed, young Liam.” Cousin sighed with mock theatricality. “Acquisitiveness is a thing of the past. We do not lust for material wealth nor do we lust for information we do not require.”

“You don’t need to quote dogma at me,” Liam answered. “I was there when it was written.
You
weren’t.”

Cousin’s face broke again into a smile. “The past is past. Only the future matters now. A future where no one is more privileged than anyone else. Even those who were there at the beginning.”

Liam clenched his jaw. He wouldn’t argue. Cousin didn’t care about the ideological purity of the revolution. He just liked to argue.

“Done already?” Cousin shook his head. “You won’t deploy that rapier wit of yours for a parry?” He glanced back to Syd’s locked door, ran one thin finger along the frame. “Or do you prefer the thrust to the parry?”

Liam glowered. Why did he alone among the Reconciliation have to suffer Cousin’s sense of humor?

“As you wish.” Cousin shrugged. He hitched his thumb over his shoulder. “Shall we be on our way?”

“I can’t leave my post.” Liam turned his face forward, stood at attention again. He’d been raised a soldier. When he felt insecure, he turned back to his training. It was as good a faith as any. Head forward, shoulders back, feet together. The appearance of confidence produced confidence.

“You have a job to do with me now, Liam,” Cousin scolded. “This is not an invitation. It is an order.”

“My job is to protect Syd and my orders come from the Advisory Council.” He didn’t turn his eyes to look at Cousin, but from the edge of his vision, he saw the man’s pale pink tongue moisten his nearly invisible lips. He stiffened his neck.

“Doctor Khan is part of those orders.”

“She wasn’t there,” said Liam. “I would recognize her if she had been in the factory that day.”

“She helped to design the system,” said Cousin. “With Syd’s late father.”

Liam tried not to react.

“You understand?” Cousin asked.

He nodded.

Cousin rubbed his chin as if he were scratching a beard. His face was as smooth as a child’s. Youthful bright too. “You see how fond I am of you, Liam? I violated all my revolutionary principles telling you more than you needed to know. Do I ever get a thank-you?”

At last, Liam turned his head to look at Cousin. He clenched his natural fist and felt the fingernails dig into the palm of his hand. He looked at Syd’s door.

Cousin whistled and two white-masked Purifiers appeared at the end of the hall. They marched loudly forward, their boots thumping.

“Can they be trusted?” Liam asked.

“As much as anyone,” said Cousin. “They’re the ones who brought him back here while you had your little chat with the Council.”

The Purifiers flanked Syd’s door and stood at attention. Liam gave them each a hard once-over. Then he reached out with his metal hand and snatched the white hood off the first Purifier. A pock-faced boy of about sixteen with a nasty scar running across his forehead. Liam nodded at him and pulled the mask off the other. A girl of about the same age, her head shaved. She set her mouth in a frown.

“The hood of the Purifier is a symbol that the individual is not the—” she recited.

“Shut it,” Liam snapped. “Now I know you. Both of you. No one else can know where Yovel is staying. If anything goes wrong . . . I will see you again but you will not see me, understood?”

The boy nodded. The girl nodded.

“I’ll be back soon,” he said and he let Cousin lead him down the hall to the metal exit stairway.

“You enjoy that, don’t you?” Cousin asked as they walked away.

Liam refused to answer. He pushed his way outside into the humid night air of the jungle-crusted city.

Cousin took a deep breath and puffed his cheeks out as he exhaled. Liam stood by his side and listened. It was well past curfew. The only sound was the background buzz of the jungle at night.

“Oh yes.” Cousin exhaled. “I do love the silences.”

He strolled off and Liam followed. There was no real rush. Doctor Adaeze Khan would not be expecting them.

THE MEETINGS DIDN’T ALWAYS
go this late. The large tent in the middle of the barren field glowed and even from a distance, Marie could see that it was packed with people. The tent was the only point of light for miles and she kept stumbling on the dark furrows of dirt as she made her way toward it. One step into a muddy irrigation pit nearly sucked her boot off her foot. Another stumble and she scraped the palm of her hand on a jagged rock.

She squeezed her hand into the cloth of her uniform to clean the small wound and to stop the bleeding. It stung, but she stifled the urge to curse. Even when she was alone, she tried to obey the new guidance about forbidden words. It wasn’t arbitrary that many of the old words were outlawed, and it wasn’t merely for the Advisory Council to assert itself. They were scholars, after all, and they were attempting to use their understanding to reshape society.

Language formed the world, and if they could reform language, they could reform thought. The new minds that would blossom within the people would never again drift back to corruption and greed. A society would be born based on mutual concern and shared sacrifice. No one would even think to exploit anyone else; they wouldn’t even have the words to conceive of the idea.

Marie believed this. She did her best to believe this.

The walk out to the farming cooperative had taken hours, her arm still aching, although the medics had repaired it so well it would barely scar where Liam had shot her. By the time she got out to the co-op, she expected the meeting would be over and she’d planned to find her parents in their barracks.

When she arrived, the barracks were empty, save for one young Purifier, napping against a motorized tractor. His green uniform was far too large for him. It hung like a blouse off his shoulders. He’d taken his white mask off to use the thick material as a pillow. He didn’t hear her approach over the whoosh of the wind turbines until she stood directly above him.

When he pointed Marie on her way toward the meeting tent, he shook like a leaf and tried to throw his mask back on at the same time. It ended up backward and he twisted and turned it, frantically stretching the fabric until he was peering with one eye out of the mouth hole.

“Thank you, friend,” she told him. “I didn’t mean to startle you. If you need to rest, rest. The Reconciliation does not need your exhaustion.”

The boy nodded and got his mask right. His eyes were wide and damp through the eyeholes. Marie felt certain he would not be sleeping on duty again tonight. Often a reminder that they served a cause greater than themselves was enough to bring most of the young Purifiers in line. All but Marie had been proxies for some spoiled brats under the old system. It amazed her that they were not all as committed as she to the new way of things. Further proof that the Advisory Council was right: The old ways of thinking had to be purged if there was any hope for the future.

“What’s your name, Purifier?”

“Tom Sa—” he said, then caught himself, cleared his throat. “I mean, my name is Arik the Destroyer.”

Marie stifled a laugh. Some of the names these kids chose for themselves. Not that she should judge. Not everyone had the luxury of keeping their old name. In truth, the boy looked more like a Tom than an “Arik the Destroyer,” but perhaps he’d grow into the name by the time he had hair under his arms. She nodded and went on her way, leaving the boy standing nervously alone in the dark.

As she grew closer, Marie saw that everyone from the co-op was crammed on uncomfortable salvage benches beneath the blazing lights of the big tent.

She saw the lead Purifier of the co-op standing in the front of the room, addressing a man in tattered slacks and a filthy open jacket—what would have no doubt once been fine clothes in Mountain City. He wore no shirt underneath the jacket and his skin had a sickly yellow color, the heavy blue lines of his veins showing through. He stood beside the Purifier with his head bowed, scratching at his arms and bare chest, scraping angry red lines into his skin.

As she drew nearer, the desert wind that turned the turbines carried the conversation to her ears.

“If we had not caught you, would you have stolen food from the central kitchen?” the Purifier demanded.

The man nodded. He would have.

“What would you like to say to your friends?” The Purifier gestured over the crowded tent.

The man coughed and began to speak in a hoarse voice.

The Purifier beside him raised a hand to stop him.

“Louder, friend,” he said. “A confession should be made with confidence . . . unless you do not believe the words you speak?”

“I believe what I say,” the man confirmed. He cleared his throat and straightened his back. With great effort, he spoke, loudly enough for his voice to carry all the way to the rear of the large tent:

“I apologize to each of you and to the Reconciliation, which I have betrayed with my covetous thoughts. My intention to steal food came from my past as an executive with Birla Nanotech, when I would profit off the labor of others. The desire to take for myself what belongs to all is ingrained in my heart. I deeply wish to purify it, and I thank you for preventing me from following through on my dark desires. With your help, I may succeed in becoming a healthy member of a community of mutual concern and shared sacrifice.”

“And do you renounce your greed?”

“I do.”

“And do you renounce your past?”

“I do.”

“And do you renounce the Machine?”

“I—” The man hesitated. He looked up at his interrogator.

The Purifier punched him in the stomach, bending him double with the blow. Marie flinched, but no one else in the tent even blinked.

“And do you renounce the Machine?” the Purifier repeated, pulling the man upright again by his hair.

“I cannot renounce what is not real,” the man said, his voice strained. “There is no Machine. Only fools believe the networks could ever be restored.”

The Purifier studied him. All eyes studied him.

“Good,” the Purifier said at last, then turned to the assembled crowd. “How best shall our friend purify himself of this greed he has confessed?”

There were murmurs in the crowd. This was a chance for the members of the cooperative to demonstrate their commitment to Reconciliation. As former elites, they were all suspect. Other white-masked Purifiers stood around the tent, watching everyone closely, no doubt noting who appeared reluctant to punish a transgression, who might themselves be tempted to transgress.

“The crime is from the past,” a voice called out. “Let the punishment be as well.”

The crowd quickly concurred with a round of clapping and stomping. The man in front nodded and stomped his feet, agreeing readily to whatever punishment was assigned to him. Reluctance to be punished would be a sign that he still harbored guilty thoughts.

“Very good,” the Purifier beside him said. “In the Mountain City, when a patron committed an infraction, his proxy would be administered jolts from an electro-muscular disruption stick.” The Purifier pulled out such a stick. No one needed an explanation. The old system had existed until just a few months ago. The EMD sticks themselves were outlawed, but it was widely known that they still circulated, and the Purifier cadres used them freely.

The Purifier activated his, and through the mouth hole of his white mask, Marie clearly saw a smirk sneak its way across his face. For a former proxy, the chance to shock a former patron this way had to be a thrill. This Purifier was bold to show his enjoyment in front of everyone. It was not supposed to be a joy.

He touched the stick to the man’s side, and instantly the man’s body jolted. After a second shock, he collapsed and quivered on the ground. Two Purifiers rushed forward to hold him up. Another shock was delivered. And another. And another. The man spit up on himself, his legs gave out, and still, another shock followed. No one dared look away.

Marie scanned the crowd and saw her parents sitting side by side, together, both of them watching the punishment being administered without the slightest emotion on their faces. Surely, they would have known this man before, when he was an executive. Her father’s company did extensive business with Birla Nanotech, who installed much of the biodata into people’s bloodstreams.

Marie didn’t recognize the man, but she could imagine him standing in their living room at a cocktail party, laughing and telling jokes. Maybe she’d even gone to school with the man’s children, if he had any. It didn’t matter. He would never see them again.

Marie knew it pained her parents to watch, but they had avoided seeing the suffering that the old system caused for so long, only seeing its benefits, that seeing suffering now served a vital purpose. Facing the pain that greed created, perhaps they could learn to build a world where greed no longer existed. As the punishment went on, her father whispered something to her mother, who nodded grimly.

When the meeting broke up and everyone began to make their way across the fields to the barracks, Marie weaved her way through the crowd to walk with them.

“Hi, Mom,” she said quietly, matching her pace to theirs. “Hi, Dad.”

Her father glanced at her and held back a cry of joy. He gave her a quick one-armed hug. “You aren’t wearing your disturbing mask?”

“I’m not on duty,” she said. “And they’re not disturbing. They are meant to remove the individual from the job. All the Purifiers are, in a way, the same Purifier.”

“Anything that hides the face of the person with power over you is disturbing,” her father whispered back.

“Oh, like a corporation?” Marie replied.

“Don’t fight,” her mother interjected. “Please. It’s so nice to see you, Marie. I’m glad you could visit with us.”

“Do your meetings usually go this late?” she asked.

“Who can tell?” her father said. “No way to tell time.”

“The Reconciliation tells you when you need to be somewhere.”

“Praises to the Reconciliation!” her father exclaimed. “We’d be so lost without them. Or ‘us,’ I mean. We’re all one, no? We’d be lost without ourselves?”

Marie sighed. Her father’s bitterness was as disheartening as it was foolish. If the wrong person were to overhear . . .

She looked at him in the dark as they walked. He had on a simple synthetic shirt and DuraStitch work pants. Marie had arranged the clothes. She knew giving special treatment to her parents was wrong, especially since they had been such anti-revolutionary figures. Her father should, by all rights, be awaiting his execution. Instead, he was with his wife, on a food production co-op wearing comfortable pants that fit him. Or at least, that had fit him a few weeks ago.

Now the pants hung off him. He’d used up the notches on the built-in belt and had tied a cord of some kind around his waist to hold them up. His shirt draped around his thin shoulders. He reminded Marie of the nervous kid she’d surprised in his nap. He was not the proud and powerful executive she’d grown up with. As they walked, he kept scratching at his chest and his arms. She noticed her mother quietly take his hand, wrap his bloody fingers in her own. There were marks on his neck and she could see the skin had lost its color, was nearly translucent to the layer of vein and muscle below.

She couldn’t deny it, life on the co-op was not being kind to her father.

And now she had to give him her news.

“I made a mistake this morning,” she said.

“Everyone makes mistakes,” her mother said, rather unhelpfully.

“I let down the Reconciliation,” she said. “I put Syd—er—Yovel in danger through my foolishness, and am being justly punished.”

Her parents stopped walking. Other figures passed them in the dark on the way back to the barracks, and in moments, they were alone in the field. Even in the dark, she could see the worried glisten in her parents’ eyes.

There was little moonlight and her black hair and dark green uniform were almost invisible. The single white stripe on her collar seemed to glow and her parents stepped toward it, leaning in close. They knew, of course, that she was their only protection. Even the other members of the co-op knew who her father had been. Many of them had been his employees. The only reason he hadn’t been killed and dumped into an unmarked pit in the field was that his daughter was a respected cadre of the Reconciliation and was a friend to the savior of the people. If she fell from grace, her mother and father would be killed faster than the rumor of her disgrace could reach them.

“Are we—?” Her mother lowered her voice to almost a breath. “In danger?”

“No,” Marie said. “But my rations, and yours, are being cut in half.”

“I noticed at mealtime this evening,” her mother said. “I assumed the cook was stealing from us.”

“That doesn’t happen anymore,” Marie objected. “Personal greed has been eliminated.”

Her father snorted a bitter laugh. “As we have just witnessed.”

“Your father’s not well,” her mother whispered.

“Take him to the medics,” Marie suggested.

It was her mother’s turn to laugh. “You’re young, Marie. Even with your uniform and your rank, you are very young.”

“All people have a right to medical care,” she said.

“You forget that your father and I are not really people.” Her mother shook her head. “We are on probation until we can prove our old ideas have been purged. Isn’t that right? Isn’t that what this so-called farm is for? To reinvent us?”

“To purify you,” Marie said. “To reeducate you. To bring out the communal spirit that we all possess.”

“Others have gone to the medics.” Her mother looped her arm through her daughter’s and led her on, with her father on the other side. “They do not come back.”

“They’re getting treatment,” said Marie.

“They never come back,” her mother said. “Better to keep our illnesses to ourselves.”

“At least they still belong to us,” her father coughed.

“Stop it, Xiao,” she admonished him. She turned back to Marie. “Don’t worry about us. We’ll make do. It’s a new world now. You wanted to make the future and so you are. You’re an important person with opportunities to rise in the ranks. We’re museum pieces. Don’t let us drag you down. There’s no profit in it.”