Steel Lily ARC (6 page)

He waved his hand dismissively. “Pish posh, really. I merely commented she could find more flattering attire. It was out of genuine concern.”

His normal hand reached into the inner breast pocket of his jacket and pulled out what looked like a marble, except the interior swirled like storm clouds. He winked at me. “Let’s stage our exit, shall we?”

I watched as he flicked the ball into the air, and it burst on contact with the floor. Immediately the hallway was doused in thick smoke. Pandemonium broke loose.

With his monocle off, he donned a pair of goggles, one eyepiece green and one brown. It reminded me of my own eyes. The man tugged at my hand before he disappeared in the smoke, gesturing to the exit one final time. “You don’t really want to be sitting at the end of this hall when the smoke clears, do you? If you come along, I can offer a better situation for people of your talent. That is, if you’re Miss Avery Pike.”

I didn’t believe him, but he was right about one thing: the last place I wanted to be when this infernal smoke cleared was here. I took his hand without hesitation.

Once we were out of the smoke-filled hallway, he released my hand. He dusted his jacket, as though a couple gentle pats would knock away the years it must have taken to accumulate the dust and grime that penetrated his clothes. He took off the goggles and hid them away in his pocket, then dug into his overcoat to reveal an oxygen mask. With as many contraptions as he had, it was possible there was a kitchen sink hidden in a pocket somewhere.

He shook the mask at me, still smiling like there wasn’t anything that could possibly be as fun as this little adventure. “You might want to don yours. I assume you’d like to collect a few belongings before we embark on our journey? I’ve already cleared you from your next class, so no worries of being accused of skipping.”

I eyed him with trepidation. Who was this man? I’d never seen him around the Dome. The longer I looked at him, the more eccentricities I found. I tried to formulate the questions rattling around in my mind. “Who are you?”

“I am Mister Atticus Riggs, director of Chromelius Academy, a school dedicated to young Elementalists such as yourself.”

“Never heard of it,” I retorted blandly.

He pointed a long finger at me, his smile full of secrets he seemed to be begging to share. “Ah, but that’s because you’ve never left the dome.”

My stomach turned over. “Never left the dome? Of course not!”

“Haven’t you ever wondered if there were any other people in the world?”

“They told us we were the only survivors.”

“My dear, you must broaden your horizons. That was a blatant lie. There are many other domes such as this — quite similar, in fact — that interact and trade goods to survive. This dome is structured to run on steam; it’s based on what Detroit was known for—industrialism. I know of a dome based in Cerritos, California that runs on solar power. So you see, each dome has its talents, and we must work together. There are approximately thirty-five domes throughout the world.”

Thirty-five places like this. It made me ill to know more people had to live like this. I looked at Mr. Riggs curiously, afraid to display too much emotion. “And you say at this place of yours, there are students like myself?”

“Just like you. Although, if the stories I’ve heard are true, you may be the best and brightest of them all.”

Mr. Riggs leaned down to get a better look at me and tapped me on the nose as a father would their favorite child. “My dear, don’t you want to be somewhere that you can learn your full potential without being a test subject? Without being an outsider?”

His words oozed concern and sincerity, although my instinct warned me they were probably false. No one ever had pure intentions, which I’d learned. I stepped back. “These people I train with are Elementalists like me and I’m still the outsider.”

“Oh, ho ho, my love!” he said, waving both arms excitedly up and down, creating an unholy racket as the mechanisms on his arm protested his sudden movements. “You’re much better than a simple Elementalist. They can manipulate the elements as you can, sure, but I believe with practice, you’ll be able to do much more. If people such as yourself and my other pupils properly educate themselves, we may very well be able to fix what the war destroyed.”

We looked at each other for a long moment. His smile never faltered. I wondered if his face ever hurt from smiling so much.

“And you want me to take you to my flat, where I live, because you claim that you have a special place for me?”

“That sounds about right, yes.”

“And you expect me to believe this entire story, out of the blue?”

“Do you have other options?”

“Yeah,” I said and turned to go, “I can leave you right here and forget you ever showed up.”

“You could do that,” the man called to my retreating back, “but then you would never know what happened to your parents, would you?”

I stopped, but didn’t turn around. “What do you know about my parents?”

“Oh, I know that Mr. and Mrs. Pike loved you dearly. Lived in a ranch style home on a cul-de-sac in a nice little neighborhood before the war tore everything apart. Before it tore them from you.”

I turned to find him picking his fingernail, his eyes on what he was doing, but obviously not focused there. He’d played his first pawn and was waiting for my move. I knew better than to give him much. “I don’t know why they disappeared, so you could say anything about them and I’d be forced to believe you.”

“You’re a bright young lady,” he said, looking up from his fingernails. He put a hand in his overcoat and this time pulled out a photograph. “I appreciate your hesitation. It means you don’t follow blithely along, a trait I welcome in these days of total submission. However, if you’ll come here, I can offer you photographic proof that I knew your parents.”

The man was clever. It felt like I was a magnet, drawn to him by the photo that rested innocently in his hand.

I took the delicate photo paper from him. It was well worn, rubbed dull at the edges. Where it had been folded many times, the ink faded and left tiny cracks. It made me feel like it might crumble to dust right there in my hands. When I focused on the image, I trembled with both joy and fright.

It was Mr. Riggs standing beside my parents, all three of them smiling.

He knew my parents.

“Miss Pike, this photo is from my personal collection. If you come with me, I can tell you more of your history, and what happened to you parents.”

This man was a gentleman, yet at the same time infuriating. I huffed and gave the photo back. “Fine, but you’re not coming home with me.”

“If you insist. When and where would you care to reacquaint ourselves?”

“I’ll meet you here in three hours.”

He bowed, forever smiling. “Most women your age aren’t as cautious as you.”

“I’m not most women.”

“And I will do well to remember that, I’m sure.”

CHAPTER

SIX

Mr. Riggs agreed to wait for me at the tower, but I still went out of my way to take side streets and unnecessary turns to Alice’s. I wasn’t sure why it felt imperative, but all the same, I followed my instinct.

I needed to talk to Alice about this. She’d know what to do. She always knew what to do when things were crazy.

Riggs’s proposal weighed heavily on my mind. Maybe Alice would have an idea on how to deal with the situation. I glanced around the kitchen as I sealed the basement door back and found Alice sitting at the table, sorting mail. “Anything fun in the notices today?”

She winked at me and tossed a stack to my edge of the table. “You know, the usual. Alliance propaganda, news about the steam levels, and your weekly letter from Governor Lindroth that I snatched from the mail center.”

“Good kindling,” I muttered.

“You haven’t even met him.” She gestured to the stack of letters on the granite countertop, some of which were yellowed with age while others were still bright white and unopened. The governor’s seal was bright against the paper; red wax with two iron rods that twisted into delicate spirals with rubies at the head. Behind the iron, a lion reared on its hind legs, mouth wide in mid-roar. The Alliance symbol.

Alice picked up a photo she’d cut from a newspaper and showed it to me. The Governor stood with his arm wrapped around a young man’s shoulders, the two of them lifting a trophy. She placed it in my hand and pointed to the boy in the black and white photo. “Have you seen his son? He’s stunning. Maybe he wants to introduce you two. You wouldn’t know, though, since you won’t read the letters.”

“He’s only writing because he wants me to support the Alliance, and I’m not picking sides for a war that ended eleven years ago.”

“You don’t know that. Have you opened one letter? Maybe they’re from his son!”

“And why on earth would his son be writing?”

Alice shrugged. “I don’t know, but maybe he is!”

I snorted. “It’s more likely he wants me to provide steam four days a week instead of three. You’d think there were only two of us able to create steam.”

Alice looked at me, her eyebrows raised, and pointed to the refrigerator where a calendar was held in place by the magnet of Hawaii. “Well, there’s only three on the rotation, so you’re not far off. Plus, I can always tell which days you provide steam. The lights in the dome are brighter. You’re stronger than the other two. You do know you’re the governor’s golden child, prodigy, phenomenon thing, right? He’s going to keep writing until you cave.”

I stood, nonplussed. “I don’t understand a word you just said. You mean he wants to make a spectacle of me? Because that I understand completely. Did you forget about what happened to Legs not twenty-four hours ago? Why would I help anyone who would do that to their people?”

Alice opened her mouth to argue, but I wasn’t in the mood for it. “Look, forget it. You haven’t heard of an Atticus Riggs by any chance, have you?”

“Of course I’ve heard of Atticus Riggs. Who hasn’t?”

Alice was a gossip. Her job at the clothing factory afforded her hours to converse with other ladies about the goings-on of the dome. She stared at me as she leaned across the table. Her eyes twinkled with the excitement of new information. “Where’d you hear about him? I heard he comes and goes…like he’s a ghost or something. One day he’s out with the rest of us, and then he goes underground for weeks on end. No one really knows what he does or where he goes.”

“He came for me today at Wutherford Tower. He says there’s another dome.”

Alice’s head jerked back in surprise, eyes wide. It made her already big brown eyes even more prominent. “Another dome? That’s ridiculous. Where would another dome be? There aren’t any other survivors. They’ve told us that.”

“He says it’s for people…people like me.”

“And what’d you say to him?”

“That I was going home and acting like I’d never met him.”

“And that’s what you’re doing?”

I could never pass anything off on Alice. I felt my face flush and bit the corner of my bottom lip. “Not exactly, no.”

Her eyes narrowed. She lowered her voice as her eyes scanned the area behind me, as though Riggs might miraculously appear there. “He’s not here, is he?”

“Of course not.”

“Oh, okay, good,” she said as she sat back and exhaled loudly. “I was going to say, I haven’t even showered today!”

“Or just that you’re living in a condemned home against government rules, I’m breaking the rules by coming out here and the less people that know, the better,” I said equably. “That’s not a problem at all.”

“Always so practical, but you’re probably right.” She said, her eyes bright with mischief. “Do you believe him?”

I shrugged and tried to look uninterested. “Not like I really have anything to lose, do I?”

She looked hurt at my words. I turned them over in my head, and quickly understood why. She’d lost her brother and parents. She wouldn’t want me to leave her behind. “Alice, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just that here—well, you’re the only one that doesn’t think I’m a bag of dung.”

“I highly doubt anyone thinks you’re a bag of dung,” Alice argued. “Are you a bit ostentatious with your abilities? Sure. A bit bullheaded and opinionated? Definitely. You may be all of that, but you’re not a bag of dung.”

“Wow, thanks for the encouragement.”

She smiled. “Any time.”

“Where’d you learn
ostentatious
, by the way?”

Alice winked. “An old crossword. Not too bad, huh?”

I nodded. “Not bad at all. I’ll have to find a good one now.”

We sat in silence at the kitchen table, the flickering light of the candle casting shadows on Alice’s slender face. I opened letter after letter from Governor Lindroth, all of them begging me to partner with him.

I’d had enough of his smooth talk, enough of the domineering Polatzi, and enough of wondering about my parents. Legs was gone, and Alice was all I had. In that moment, my decision was clear.

I stood and headed to Alice’s room to begin packing my stuff I had here before I lost my resolve. Wherever Mr. Riggs took me couldn’t be any worse than here, plus I could avoid giving steam tomorrow if I left tonight.

Alice followed me. “If you leave, we’ll be down to two, and you know they’re nowhere near as good as you. You’re keeping us afloat.”

I jerked my thumb in the direction of the kitchen. “Did you not see the generator running the refrigerator?
That
keeps us afloat, not me. And quite frankly, I prefer that to being wiped out for the days following my ‘donation’ to the dome.”

Alice nodded her head from side to side and bit her lip. “You might be right, except the generator is blatantly illegal and I’d be jailed until my hair turned grey for owning one if word got out. You know energy is at an all-time low, even with you giving more than anyone else.” She watched me as I pulled an empty duffel bag out from under her bed. “So you’re going to go with Mr. Riggs? You’re leaving the dome, just like that? Leaving me?”

Alice’s words hung in the air and left me uncomfortable. I pulled a handful of socks and under garments from the dilapidated drawer Alice gave me for my clothes and tossed them in the bag. There were a couple shirts and a pair of pants wadded up in the drawer as well. Everything of mine, no matter the state of wear, went into the duffel.