Jamb: (3 page)

“We were wondering something,” Sean says, drawing my focus back to the table.  “We were wondering if your Tralate abilities
could help us at all.”

I shrug.  “Help with what?”

“Figuring out who’s going to try to kill the Addo,”  Garrett says.   Sean slips a few almonds from the bag in front of me.

“Well, a
t least,” he grins, tossing a nut in the air and catching it in his mouth, “which one of us they’ll try to kill first.”

CHAPTER TWO

“NOBODY KNOWS I’M TRAINING TO BE AN ADDO yet,” Sean says, “but the Curas are going to want to identify all the Moxes pretty soon.  So we can get all the Curas organized again.”

“
And we’re thinking that if we can figure out who is the actual target,” Garrett says, “we can concentrate protection on that Addo, instead of dividing up all the Contego.  It would give us better odds of keeping the Addos safe.”

“
So,” Sean says, “What I’d like to know is if I’m going to have all you guys sleeping and eating and taking showers with me or if you’re going to double down on Addo Larry instead.”

I laugh. 
“Didn’t you just tell Deeta not to be paranoid?”

“Well,” Sean drawls.  “You know Deeta.  She’s Alo.  She tends to flip out a little faster than everyone else.
  If she thinks she can say anything she wants, she probably won’t say a word, but if she thinks she has to be secretive...”

“She’ll spill everything she’s learned since kindergarten,”
Zane finishes.

“So things are
worse than you made them out to be,”  I say.  They each answer me with a solemn nod.

“The
whole first Cura—the entire dang lot of them—all went to The Fury.  That’s pretty epic.”

“
Historically, the Ianua has never lost an entire Cura,” Sean says. “There has always been thirteen.  The closest we’ve ever come were only a few recorded instances that happened hundreds of years ago, when a majority of members left a Cura over a dispute with an Addo.  But even then, the entire group wasn’t lost.”

“So, just re-distribute everybody.”

“That’s not the protocol.  The rule is: if the entire Cura dissipates, then that Cura is dissolved.”

I chew on my thumbnail, like my mom used to, and a thought floats to the surface. 
“The entire first Cura isn’t lost, though.  Milo’s still here.”

Zane blows a wet raspberry.  “More like the first Cura left a burning ba
g of Milo on our front porch, before they all ran away.  The guy isn’t recording memories even though they’re stacking up.  He’s the only Alo left in his Cura to write them and he’s not lifting a finger.  All the other Alo, from all the other Curas, are working twice as hard to do their share, and now they have to carry his load too.  He hasn’t written one Memory yet.  He’s not doing anything, besides sitting around and sucking up food.  It seems pretty obvious that he’s either a traitor that The Fury didn’t want or he’s a traitor that’s just waiting for the right time to do whatever he’s going to do.”

“Except
that there’s not much he can do, stuck in here with all of us,” Garrett says.

“Exactly,” Zane says.  “The Fury probably wants to kill him as much as we do.  The little weasel’s safe and sound right now. 
He’s probably just waiting until he’s got something juicy to take back to The Fury.”

“Like who the new Addos are,”
I say.  My insides do a heavy dry-heave that, thankfully, doesn’t surface.  Milo could easily be a traitor.  Everything points to it.  He spilled to the Addo to save himself and he hasn’t bothered to record any memories.  My skin crawls, thinking of how Milo sat beside me in the Courtyard and cried, how he looked me in the eye and told me about how my traitor of a dad raised him.  And I felt sorry for him.  But it could all be a set up—him working me like a bowling pin that he can just knock down.

“
The good thing is that no one knows I’m an Addo yet,” Sean says.

“I
can ask my father about Milo,” I offer.  “He’s my Connection now, so he has to tell me the truth, right?”

“
Not exactly.  A Connection only has to tell you whatever he knows that is necessary to keep you safe,” Garrett says.  “There’s a gray line there.  If Milo’s not a direct threat to you, technically, your father doesn’t have to tell you anything.”

“Huh,” I say, as a
few ideas pop into my mind.  Garrett cocks his head at me, his eyes squinted with curiosity.  I ignore it as I ask Sean, “So how long can we keep your Addoship a secret?”

“
Well, the Addo is preparing for the Totus right now,” he says.  “All the Moxes will be revealed then, but the Addo was still debating whether he was going to do the closed Totus and call in one Cura at a time or go ahead with the usual, open discussion format.”

“
One at a time would be the smart way,” I say.  “With all our Contego there, on guard.”

Zane gives me his nod of approval.
“You’re thinkin’ like a warrior chick now.”

“
It seems like the only way to go, doesn’t it?” Sean says.  “Except that a closed Totus with each Cura will take forever, it zaps our solidarity, and it doesn’t keep the Addo from being a target.  If the Addo meets individually with each Cura’s Procella, then there will be a lot of repeat information.  And what about their other top players?  The Procella would be responsible for briefing their own Curas.  Information and necessary details would probably get lost in the shuffle.

“And y
ou know how people are.  Ianua or not, everybody’s just human.  Closed Totuses make people wonder if there is favoritism, if someone else knows more than they do, and if there’s something the Addo forgot to tell them or didn’t get right.  The closed Totus allows for too many secrets and miscommunications.  And, since the Procella are going to reveal their Moxes, then it also means that the Addo is going to be have another load of desirable information.  He’s even more of a target if he’s the only one with all the info.”

“We might as well bronz
e him and stick him on a trophy for them.  Or save time and just paint the target right on his butt,” Zane says.

“
Why not leave the Moxes unidentified?”  I say.  “Have them set up a private meeting with the Addo on their own.”

“Because the Addo is on lock down,” Garrett says.  “We
don’t want everyone claiming to be a Mox, just so they can get to the Addo.  We also need to get the Moxes up and running, so they can start guiding the Curas and helping out the Addo.  The Alo are racking up the Memories and the Addo can’t clear them away fast enough on his own.”

Zane rubs his chin.  “
At some point, we’re going to have to get all the Addos mobile too, so they can go out and bless the Memories that are piling up out in the Curas too.”

“One mess at a time.”  Garrett smiles.

“Well, we’re assuming that all the remaining Cura’s Alo are even still out there recording,” Sean says softly.  “I hope my Cura is, whichever one I get.”

My belly does another sick flop.  I hadn’t
really thought of what Sean’s Addoship would mean to the rest of us.  It means that Garrett’s family will be torn apart even further.  Our Cura already has an Addo, so Sean will have to guide some other Cura, somewhere else in the world.  Addo’s don’t live next door to each other.  They’re spread across the continents and they only see each other once a year, at the annual Indicium meetings.  I don’t know if the Addo’s families ever get to see each other at all, especially if the family members are Contego with their own Addo to look after.  I don’t know if there’s ever vacation time.  But now, with shortages in all the Curas, we may never be able to see Sean again.

“
I guess we don’t have to worry about it now,” Zane grumbles.  “The way things are going, there might not be any Curas left when this is all over.  Shoot,
we
might not be left when this is over!”

“Why?” I ask, my voice closing up
a little.  “What else is going on?”

“
One moment at a time,” Garrett whispers in my ear.  He grasps my hand and I feel the soothing Indigo of his touch leak into me.  I repeat in my head,
We’re safe.  Garrett’s here. We’re all here. It’s okay. 
But I know I have to see the big picture too.  It’s what I signed up for, as a Contego.  I know I have to face it with my big-girl-pants belted on.  Without freaking out. I take a deep breath and try to brace myself to hear more bad news without crumbling beneath it. Garrett gives me a tiny, encouraging grin.

“
Tell me,” I say.

“
The riots are world wide now,” he begins.  “We thought they were only here and that it was a contained thing, but we were wrong.  Remember the night we got here and what we saw on TV?”  I nod slowly.  Oh, do I remember.  The news reports were terrifying.  Murder, theft, rapes, abductions.  Everything evil in the world seemed to be happening all at once.  “The amount of crimes has tripled and they’ve gotten more severe.  And it’s not just happening here.  It’s going on all over the world.”

“This Cusp is a big fish,
” Zane sighs.  Sean strums his fingers on the table.

“But you
could be our ticket out of it, Nalena,” he says.  “We were wondering if your abilities could help us root out any bad eggs in the Curas that are here.  Maybe we can get some writing samples from them and you could let us know if you can detect anything.”

“I could try,” I tell him
, “but I don’t think it’ll work.  The words that warn me about stuff only show up when I’m the one in immediate danger.”

Sean rubs his chin in thought. 
“It may not even work if there are traitors in the ranks who already know you are a Tralate.  Then all they’d have to do is work around you, keep away from you, and they could still get to everyone else.”

“
No one knows,” I say.  “Addo Chad didn’t even know I was the Tralate.  He thought it was Iris.  And if he didn’t know, I doubt anyone else from The Fury would know either.   But the only sure way I know to make the Tralation to work, and for me to know if there’s trouble coming, is if I’m the one who’s in direct line of the danger.  I should be on watch for the Addo.  Everybody knows I’m a noob, don’t they?  Anyone who’s going to try anything would know it’s easier to get through me than anyone else, right?”

“There’s a point,” Zane says, but
Garrett suddenly slams his open hand down on the table.  Sean, Zane, and I jump in our seats.

“No,”
he says.  “You are not bait.”

A
fire jumps up in his eyes.  It’s that predatory look that once scared me, when I surprised him in his kitchen, but right now, he’s aiming it squarely at Zane.  And even though Zane throws up both hands like he’s surrendering, he just keeps on blabbing.

“
If she’s guarding the Addo, then she’d know what’s going to happen before it happens anyway.  We’d be on it like flies on stink, before anybody even knew what hit them.”

Garrett’s
eyes have turned from fire to a lethal ice and I don’t know why Zane isn’t backing off and apologizing already.

“That’s the old way of dealing with The Fury,” Garrett growls. “The game’s changed.  You know that.  They know our moves before we make them
now.  How many people do we have to lose before we all figure it out?  I’m not putting Nali up as a road block, when we don’t even know what’s coming at us.  She hasn’t been trained nearly enough to handle it yet.”

“
To
handle
it?” I snap, but Zane steamrolls right past me.

“
Well, that’s a big ol’ plate full of fear, right there, buddy,”  Zane says. 

“Careful,” Sean warns, but Zane
just pops a handful of almonds into his mouth as everything human in Garrett’s expression disappears. 

Even I know, the way Garrett’s eyes flash at his friend, that Zane’s skated out too far.  He’s
gone way past danger sign, way past even the thin ice.  But Zane, being Zane, ignores it.  Garrett’s jaw sets, his eyes lock on Zane, and Garrett suddenly looks the most frightening I’ve ever seen him.  A furious, lethal machine.  And Zane is still sitting there popping almonds, oblivious. And then, as if he can’t stand not to make it worse, Zane opens his mouth, not to put more nuts in, but to let his crazy talk out.

“
You gotta suck it up, G, and let Nali Girl do her job.”

O
nly one thought makes it through my head before Garrett launches himself out of his chair.

Oh...dummy
.

In
a lightening-fast move, Garrett throws a perfect hook punch that sends Zane sailing out of his chair.  Zane all but splatters against the half-wall that separates the eating area from the kitchen.  Garrett takes another step toward his friend.

But I’m
on my feet too.

I jump on Garrett’s back, curling my legs around his thighs and
banding my arms around his biceps, so he doesn’t keep going.  He could throw me off if he wanted to, but I know that my weight on him will at least slow him down enough to make him think, before he totally creams his best friend.

And
I’m right. There’s a tense moment, before Garrett finally exhales.  It takes another couple seconds before I feel his muscles relax beneath mine.  I slide off his back. 

Garrett
rights Zane’s chair, slamming the feet down on the floor.  Then he puts out his hand to help Zane up and Zane takes it with a slap of the palms.  Garrett heaves his friend onto his feet, and Zane rubs his jaw with his free hand.