Guardian (9 page)

WHEN THEY TOUCHED DOWN
in the alley beside the old school hours later, Counselor Baram left the hovercraft without a word. He hadn’t spoken to Syd the entire ride, busying himself in the cockpit with the pilots, even as Syd demanded explanations from him.

“They were taking away regular people,” Syd called after. “Not Guardians. Those weren’t Guardians who were infected!”

“Syd, let him go.” Liam stopped him. “Let’s get inside where it’s safe.”

“Safe from what?” Syd snapped at him. “Stop being paranoid.”

“My paranoia keeps you alive,” Liam responded. “Get inside.”

“You don’t give me orders.”

“Syd, please. I’m just trying to—” Suddenly, Liam stopped. His hand went down to his belt and came up with the bolt gun, spring locked to fire.

“Don’t shoot.” Marie stepped from the door of the school in her Purifier uniform. “My arm is fine, by the way.”

“What are you doing here?” Liam lowered the weapon. “I could have shot you. Again.”

“It went so well for you last time.” She smiled, pulling off her hood and running her hand through her hair.

Syd would never cease to be amazed by her guts. Everyone else cowered in front of Liam, even if he had never done anything to them. He’d shot Marie, and still she talked back.

“I need to talk to Syd,” she said.

“How did you even know about this place?” Liam demanded.

Marie shrugged.

“I told her,” said Syd. Liam gave him a disapproving look. “Someone had to know where I was.”

I’m someone,
thought Liam, but out loud he said, “We can’t talk out here.”

Marie opened her arms. “So you going to invite me in?”

Syd didn’t give Liam a chance to answer. “
I
am. Come on.”

When they got to Syd’s room, Liam did not want to leave them alone together.

“Don’t worry,” Marie scoffed. “He’s not my type.”

“I’ll be right outside,” Liam grumbled, leaving the door cracked open while he took up his post. Liam couldn’t help the pang of jealousy he felt. Marie knew Syd in a way he never could, a way Syd would never let him.

When Liam had gone out, Marie relaxed a bit. “Cheery room,” she said, looking over the blank walls and the unmade cot. Syd’s clothes were strewn about, and while he cleared them off his chair for her, she fired a quick glance to his bucket in the corner.

“Don’t worry,” he told her. “I empty it regularly.”

“I’m surprised Liam lets you out to do that,” Marie replied.

“Oh, he doesn’t,” said Syd. “I’m allowed to use a bot for that. The programming is pretty basic, and I had to fix it myself, but they decided it was better than giving me the chance to slip away. Also, how would the people feel if they knew what my bowel movements smelled like?”

Marie snorted a laugh and sat down on the chair opposite Syd’s cot. “People know you’re human, Syd.”

“You’d be surprised.” Syd sat on the edge of his cot, directly across from her, so close their knees touched. He spoke quietly, certain that Liam was listening. “I’m a little surprised Liam let you come in here anyway. He’s . . . possessive.”

“He’s just being protective,” she said. “But anyway, he owed me one.”

Syd feigned shock. “
He owed you!
Why, Purifier Alvarez, debt language is forbidden in this new age of ours!”

“I’m glad you appreciate the irony,” she said. “Listen, I’m not here to talk about Liam.”

“I figured.”

“I need your help.”

“My help?” Syd looked around his messy room. “I’m stuck in here. There’s not much I can do for anybody.”

Marie took a deep breath. She was going against all her ideals here. The girl who risked everything to wipe out the privilege her family enjoyed was about to ask for special privilege for her family. No going back now. She’d come this far and a week had already passed.

“Something’s wrong with my father,” she said. “He won’t survive on the half rations he’s taking because of what happened last week. I need . . . I need you to intervene.”

Syd shot up like he’d been jolted by an EMD stick. “What kind of sick?”

“I don’t know.”

“Itching?”

Marie nodded.

“Veiny . . . like you can see his veins?”

Marie hesitated. “I know what you’re saying, but he just needs more food. He’ll be fine if he doesn’t starve. You can help with that.”

“I think it’s more serious,” said Syd.

“You’re a doctor now?”

“I just notice things.”

Marie stood again, turned her back on Syd. “No. If this infection is spreading, the Reconciliation has doctors. They’ll get it under control.”

“Like they’re doing with the Guardians?”

“I know you think they’re being cruel to the nonoperatives, but they’re dying anyway and it was just—”

“I get it,” said Syd. “You did your job. You don’t need me to forgive you.”

“But I do,” she said. “I need you to help my parents.”

“You think I’d let them die out of what? Spite?”

Marie shrugged.

“You don’t think much of me,” Syd said.

“I do,” said Marie. “I want to . . . but ever since Knox . . . you know. You’re supposed to
inspire
people. All you do is sulk. People are losing faith in you.”

“I don’t know why they have faith in me in the first place.”

“Don’t say that.”

“You sound just like Baram and Liam, you know?”

“They’re right.”

“I went to a co-op today.” Syd closed his eyes. “Smiled at people, put on a good face . . . and it turned into a riot. I’m sure people died. Every time I do anything, people die. You were with me from the beginning. You know the body count. I’m not supposed to be anyone’s inspiration. I’m a fake.”

“So what? Everyone’s a fake. At least you can give people hope if you can stop thinking about yourself for one second.” Marie regretted saying it as soon as she said it. She knew she shouldn’t be antagonizing Syd, but he was even worse than her parents. They had a reason to resist the way things were; Syd was just being difficult. “I’m sorry,” she added.

“I saw other sick people today.” Syd stood up beside her. “Regular people and they were starting to look just like the . . . nopes. The moment I was gone, I think they were
dealt with
by some of your white-hooded friends.”

“No,” said Marie. “That’s not what we do.”

“I saw it.”

“You believe the worst about everything.”

“Experience has yet to prove me wrong.”

“Well, this isn’t what you think.” Marie looked around his depressing room, looked at the puffiness around his eyes, the red rims. He hadn’t been sleeping. He was a boy who couldn’t let the past go. He wouldn’t let himself forget any of the bad he’d been through or remember any of the good. “Not everything in this world has to be horrible, Syd. Have some faith. Knox did.”

Syd winced at the name on someone else’s lips.

“He died so that you could live,” she went on. “You can’t just wallow in self-pity. He gave you a future.”

“Why don’t we go see your parents?” Syd changed the subject. “I’ll have a talk with the leaders of their co-op and we’ll get their rations back up. Maybe Yovel can be good for something more than waving at people.”

“No way.” Liam came into the room. He’d been listening the entire time. “That is way against the rules. Her parents live in a restricted area. It’s a reeducation camp. The Council would have both our heads for going there.”

“Liam, this is something I can do,” said Syd. “I can get her parents enough to eat. Don’t you want to see Yovel make people’s lives better? I thought you were a believer.”

Liam sympathized. “Look, Syd, I know you want to help, but we need to get approval for this kind of thing. I can’t keep you safe if a riot breaks out among all the patrons they’ve got working on that farm. Most of them hate you.”

“I’m not sitting in this room doing nothing while people are dying,” said Syd.

“I . . . well . . . ,” Liam stammered. He looked at Marie, wished she weren’t there, wished he could have just a moment alone with Syd. But it was now or never. He had to try something to stop Syd from this crazy idea. “Look, I’ve got a surprise for you,” he said. “Something you’ll like. I’ve been saving it for you. You see, I found this handmade—”

“I don’t want your surprises,” Syd cut him off. “I want you to take me to Marie’s parents.” Syd crossed his arms. He met Liam’s eyes. As hard as Liam’s face was, the eyes had that pleading dampness. His cheeks were flushed, chastened at being cut off in front of Marie. Strong as he was, he looked terribly vulnerable at that moment, and Syd realized then that he had never really looked at Liam before, never closely. Liam had been more like a piece of furniture than a person, even as Liam looked at him all the time. He saw Liam’s eyes widen with expectation for what Syd would say next, what this long, lingering stare could mean.

So Syd told him: “You will take me or else I’ll have the Council remove you from my protection assignment. For personal reasons.”

“I don’t know what you’re . . . I have no . . .” Liam blushed bright now, the way anglo boys did. Syd just stared at him, his own features showing a practiced indifference. Marie raised her eyebrows, waiting.

Liam felt like the ground had fallen out from under him.

“I’m not sure I can take you there.” He looked away, standing up straight, returning to his military posture. Now was not the time to fall apart. “It’s not an area I’m authorized to be in.”

“But you will take me anyway,” Syd told him.

It wasn’t a question so much as an order and Syd had no doubt Liam would follow it.

IT HAD TAKEN A
few days, but Liam finally found a way to get them to the cooperative on the edge of the city without getting in trouble. When they arrived, morning mist still hung over the fields and the high dirt berms and low-slung buildings. With the rattle of a prerecorded holo projected on the side of a building, a glorious sunrise over the jungle canopy, and a swell of music, the workers rose to a new day of labor for the prosperity of the Reconciliation and the benefit of their community.

Or they should have.

Other than the music and the holo hanging in front of the meeting tent, the co-op was dead quiet when Liam, Syd, and Marie arrived. The fields were empty. The dining tent too. They picked their way over the uneven dirt toward the barracks, a knot of anxiety clenching in Marie’s stomach.

Outside, leaning against the tractor in the same position she had seen him in before, was the young Purifier, sleeping soundly. He didn’t have his white mask on, as it was again pressed behind his head for a pillow. His face was dotted with zits, his mousy hair tussled and unruly, and a slick of drool hung from his mouth, dangling precariously over his chest.

They stood over him. Marie put on her white mask.

He snored.

Marie coughed and the boy’s head snapped up. The thread of drool broke and dripped onto his uniform. He hopped to his feet, looking around frantically for the white mask, which had fallen behind him and on which he was now standing.

“Purifier! Where is your community? Why are they not preparing for the day? Why are you sleeping on duty again?” Marie grilled the boy, flashing anger through the eyeholes in her mask, and doing her best to amplify the terror the boy was obviously feeling.

“I . . . they . . . ,” the boy stuttered. “Is that . . . Syd?”

Liam clenched his fist, but the boy didn’t even seem to notice.

“Syd!” He almost jumped. “It’s me! Tom? From school? Remember me?”

“I thought you were Arik the Destroyer,” Marie said.

“Tom!” he said again. “My name was Tom! We were, like, friends?”

“Uh . . .” Syd had a vague memory of the kid’s face and a broken holo projector he’d wanted Syd to fix. They’d hardly been friends.

“Have you come . . .” The boy looked conspiratorially between Syd, Marie and Liam. “Have you come to save me?”

“Save you?” Marie grunted at the boy. “What do you need to be saved from?”

“You mean . . .” The boy was perplexed. “You don’t know? The infection?”

He pointed to the barracks, shaking his head. Marie moved toward the door.

“Don’t go in there,” the boy warned. “It’ll take you too.”

“Where are the other Purifiers?” Liam asked.

The boy shook his head.

“Sick?” Syd glanced at the dark doorway.

“Ran off,” the boy said. “I’m the only one who stayed.” He cleared his throat. Stood tall. “I’m not a deserter. I’m loyal to the Reconciliation.”

“Why didn’t you report this to your guidance counselor?” Marie whirled around on the boy.

Tom looked at his feet. “I did,” he said.

“He ran off too?” Syd asked.

Marie was disgusted. How weak these cadres of Purifiers were. How cowardly. How could they build a better world if they were afraid of some sick people?

“No,” the boy told them. “He’s inside. The infection got him.” The boy finally met Marie’s eyes. “I know who you are, Marie. It got your parents too. It’ll get everyone. It’s our punishment. We never should have changed the way things were.” He looked at Syd. “You never should have broken the—”

Marie didn’t stick around to hear the frightened boy’s rambling. She plunged into the dark of the barracks to find her parents. Syd followed her. Liam hesitated.

“Wait, I—” But wherever Syd went, Liam went. To the ends of the world if he had to. So what if Syd didn’t feel the same way about him. He didn’t have to. Loyalty wasn’t a transaction.

As they entered the barracks, the smell almost knocked them all back outside again.

Marie pulled off her mask and used the balled cloth to cover her mouth and nose, but even so, she couldn’t totally stop the smell of rot and sweat and human waste from rising to her nostrils. As all their eyes adjusted, they began to see the source—or rather, sources—of the smell.

The barracks was one long room with a door at the front and the back, leading out to the latrines. It was wide enough for four rows of sleeping mats with an aisle between each row. Slatted walls and high open windows webbed with wire let in some light and allowed the air to circulate. The meager openings, however, were no match for the powerful smells of over three hundred sick people lying on their mats beneath thin blankets, groaning, coughing, and crying out. Even in the low light, they could see the toll the affliction was taking.

People were covered in the black webbing of their own veins. Some lay tearing furiously at their clothes and hair and skin, opening sores with their scratching. Others lay motionless, unable or unwilling to move. Some had begun to bleed black blood.

While their symptoms looked just like those of the nopes, they did not suffer in silence like the nopes did. They made their agony known in unintelligible groans.

Except for the ones who had passed beyond agony.

There were more than a few of those. They looked as if all the black veins in their body had burst. They lay covered in dried blood, all over their faces, necks, hands and feet. They were ageless, genderless, faceless. In death, they had attained complete equality. They were indistinguishable.

Marie shivered. She both longed and dreaded to find her parents and hoped the boy outside had been wrong, that they weren’t here, that they had taken the flight of the Purifiers as their own cue to leave.

And then she feared they were out in the wilderness, sick, or picked up by another patrol of Purifiers who had not abandoned their duty and had executed her parents on the spot.

Her mind searched for a scenario that did not end in her parents suffering an agonizing death. She wandered down the middle aisle, scanning the gaunt faces of the dying and wishing that she could offer more than her gaping stare and her rising panic that she was now no one’s daughter.

Liam kept himself at Syd’s side. “Keep your head down,” he said. “Maybe no one will recognize you.”

No one did.

The savior of the people did not visit places like this, and there was no reason any of these formerly privileged pillars of society would have recognized some dark-skinned slum kid. It’s not like they could have looked up a picture of Yovel on their datastreams. As long as no one saw the mark behind his ear, he’d be anonymous.

Strangely, this was the first time in months Syd had been able to truly let down his guard. He felt, for a moment, like himself.

As they moved down the row, those who could reached out to Marie.

“Purifier,” they called out.

“Water.”

“Excuse me.”

“Help me.”

Fingers clutched at Marie’s pant legs, tugged at her without enough strength to slow her down. Dark eyes pleaded. And the voices, male and female, too weak to distinguish:

“Water.”

“Water.”

“Flaaa . . .”

Some had lost the power of language altogether. There were too many hands. Too many people. Too much pain.

“Gaaa.”

“Water.”

“Oooo.”

“Marie.”

A flood of terrified relief crashed over her at the sound of her name. Marie saw her father and her mother beside him on the same small mat, leaning on each other. The veins beneath their skin were visible, but not bulging out, not black. They were not well, but they were both alive and they were better off than many, worse off than some.

She knelt down in front of them and resisted the urge to throw her arms around their necks. She didn’t want to hurt them. She didn’t want to infect herself. It occurred to her, far too late to do anything about it, that maybe she already had. Why did she rush in here without thinking about contagion? Why didn’t the Advisory Council warn people that a plague was spreading? Why had she let Syd come?

Worrying about her parents had clouded her judgment. Five minutes ago, she would have berated herself for betraying her ideological purity and unwavering commitment to the Reconciliation. Now all she wanted was to make her parents better.

“Mom,” Marie said, instead of screaming out any of the questions that raced through her mind.

Her mother cracked a smile, her dry lips cracking doubly.

“You need water,” Marie said, pushing herself up, but her mother’s hand shot out surprisingly fast.

“Don’t go,” her mother said. “Your . . . uh . . .” She looked at the man beside her.

“Father,” said Marie.

“Yes.” Her mother sighed. “The words. My memory for them is . . . but your father . . . he’s not well. Stay.”

Her father stared at her without speaking. His eyes were rimmed with red and his blue veins ran wild all over his face and bare head. There were angry red patches where he’d scratched himself furiously.

“You need water,” Marie repeated. She told Syd and Liam to stay with her parents, as she rushed down the long aisle, past the groaning invalids and the blank-eyed dead. She didn’t stop until she’d gone out the back door and found the pump off the water tank. She filled a jug, noticing that the giant tank itself was nearly empty. She knew the regulations. It should have been refilled every week. It should never get this low. Something had gone wrong. Someone had not sent a hovercraft to resupply the co-op. Someone had decided all these people were not worth saving.

She rushed back inside with the water, ignoring everything and everyone until her parents were able to take a drink. Syd and Liam just stood there, dumbly. It hadn’t occurred to either of them to say a kind word or take the hand of a suffering person. Marie shook her head.

Her mother helped her father wet his lips before she drank her own water. He coughed and choked, but swallowed a few sips. Marie could hardly bear to look at him.

“How long has he been like this?” Syd asked.

“It came quickly,” her mother said. “A few days ago, we were fine. Maybe a little tired, but we assumed that was because of the work and the hunger. Others fell first. Their thoughts jumbled. We began to see their veins through their skin. We didn’t think it would affect us. But it had already.”

She scratched an itch on her face, then the back of her hand. Then her face again. She started to scratch with both her hands, faster and faster, raised red lines on her cheeks, and Marie reached out, stopped her as she had seen her mother do before. “It itches at first,” her mother smiled meekly. “Then the blood begins to . . .”

“Burn,” her father gasped out the word.

Marie’s mother drifted her eyes to Syd. “I know who you are,” she told him. Liam tensed and looked around. Marie put her finger to her lips, urged her mother to stay quiet.

“Keep my daughter out of trouble,” she told Syd.

“She’s better at staying out of trouble than I am.” Syd smiled. He felt stupid smiling in a place like this, but he didn’t know what else to do. Liam didn’t know what to do either. He looked like he wanted to hit something, but then, he always looked like that. “Can you tell me what happened here?”

“It spread so fast,” Marie’s mother repeated. “As people showed signs, the Purifiers shouted and beat them, but it didn’t matter, tried to make them work harder, faster. They slowed. Their bodies—our bodies—could no longer do the job.” She read the worry on Marie’s face. “No one beat your father or me. I think your friend provided us some protection there.” She smiled back at Syd.

Did she realize that not long ago all her fine clothes, her jewelry, her fancy home had come from the company that profited off Syd’s torture? Did she realize that he was the reason she’d lost it all?

“The guidance counselor for our cadre of Purifiers fell ill too,” her mother explained. “He tried to hide the signs, but his assistants saw the beginning, they saw the lines beneath his skin, like the Guardians’, like ours . . . they threw him in here. They began throwing all the sick in here. They told us if anyone tried to leave, he or she would be killed on the spot.”

“They’re gone now,” Marie said. “They all left.”

“We know,” her mother said. “They left that one boy of theirs, the youngest, behind. Told him they’d report him if he abandoned his post, even as they abandoned theirs. Told him they’d kill him if they saw him before relief arrived. We all heard him whining.” She smiled at the thought. Marie found it comforting to see her mother could still hold a grudge, even as she struggled to hold her head up. “But there he stayed. I think it’s obvious to all of us but him that no relief is coming. Your colleagues . . .” She shook her head, looking at Marie’s uniform. “We would have fled, a whole group of us, but by the time we realized that boy was the only one standing guard, we were too weak to run. Besides, where would we go?”

“Do you know where this disease came from? How it started?” Syd asked.

“The nopes? Did it spread from them?” Marie wanted to know.

“They showed the first . . .” Her mother’s eyes moved around in her head. She looked lost, searching.

“Symptoms?” Marie suggested.

Her mother nodded.

Marie’s father let out a pained groan. He pushed himself up onto his elbows and tried to speak. “Not . . . your . . . fault . . . ,” he said.

“Shh.” Marie’s mother stroked his head. “Rest, my love. She knows. She knows it’s not her fault.”

“My fault?” Marie leaned toward her father. “Why would I think this was my fault?” Her father tried to answer. His lips moved, but no sound came out. She grabbed his hand. “Why would it be my fault?”

“It isn’t, Marie.” Her mother rested her hand on top of theirs. “He’s not thinking clearly. He didn’t mean anything by that.”

“He meant
something,
Mother. Tell me.”

“He’s been like this for days,” her mother said. “I have no more idea than you do.”

“The Machine,” her father said.

Syd leaned down. “What was that?”

“Nothing,” Marie’s mother replied quickly.