The Conformity (33 page)

His face clouds, and I guess he isn't too far removed from humanity to know when death has weight. “Okay. Tell it to me again,” he says. “You just remembered your condition. A heart problem. This time, if you leave anything out, your heart will stop. You understand?”

Suddenly, sweat's prickling all over my body. I stand there rigid, barely able to move for fear that my heart will stop beating. I run through the story again. I tell him everything. Falling. The joining of the Irregulars' minds with Shreve as the hub. Our miniature Conformity. Before I'm through, Blackwell and Galine stand in the doorway with weapons.

“Holy shit,” Blackwell says. “Things have gone way off the deep end.”

“And they want me,” Reese says. “They don't even have a plan. Jack said it himself. Just to bring me to that kid Shreve.”

“Shreve's trouble,” Blackwell says. There's no love lost there. “But we can use Jack and Ember. They could be rovers. Scavengers.”

Galine nods, eyes bright. “We can't draw any more attention to ourselves.” A shiver passes through her, and her face goes still. “I can't face that
thing
again.”

“They're calling it the Conformity. You got that, didn't you? They're planning on taking it on,” Reese says.

“Holy Christ,” Blackwell says. “Count me out.”

“Hold on, guys,” Reese says, holding up his hands to Blackwell and Galine, shushing them. He turns back to me. “Hey, Jack. You totally trust us. Right? Understand? We're the most trustworthy people in the world. We're your best friends.”

Something's wrong with what Reese has said, but I can't figure it out right now because I do like these guys. Always have. There was a time when I was next in line to join Blackwell's Red Team. I always knew they liked me and we'd become best friends.

“How much time do we have, Jack? You know, before you have to be back with Ember and Tap?”

“I don't know. Soon, I guess. None of us have watches.”

“Okay. Just give us a minute. You probably want to stay here, Jack, don't you think?”

“Yeah, I do.”

They go into the hall, and I can hear mumblings and murmurings. When they return, Reese is smiling.

“So, listen, Jack. We've talked about it and we want you, Ember, and Tap to join our group. You know? We think you'll be a big asset, since we don't have any flyers. You want to join us, too, I think.”

Again, something's not right, but nothing he's said isn't true. So I say, “Yeah. Sure, that sounds good.”

“So, you want to convince them to come in here to talk to us. You really want to convince them, don't you?”

“Yes,” I say. Blackwell's and Galine's faces are masks. They seem neither happy nor upset at the idea of us joining. Something's wrong here, but I can't put my finger on it.

“How do you think you'll be able to convince them?” Reese asks.

I have to think about it. “I'll tell them that you're ready to join Shreve. But you have to get some stuff together.”

“Right. You said you carried that woman. The doctor lady.”

“Veterinarian. Madelyn. And yes. Ember lifted her, and we pulled Ember.”

“Okay, you'll tell them that's the plan with me, too, right? And they'll need to come inside and warm up and have something to eat before we leave. Because we're all friends, right?”

“Yes. We're all friends.”

“Okay. Let's go outside, and you can go talk to Tap and Ember,” Reese says. “You're gonna love it here, you know?”

“Yeah,” I respond. “I think you're right.”

“You'll do whatever it takes to get them to come down here for a chat, won't you?”

“Of course.”

“My man,” Reese says, slapping me on the shoulder. “My man.”

I land near them in the snowy field, in the lee of a brake of ponderosa pines. The wind's not so bad here. The sun feels good on my face. I pull back my hood when I land by Ember and Tap. They look cold and tense.

“Hey,” I say, pulling off my gloves. “He's willing to go with us to Shreve.”

“What? That easy?” Ember says. “What did you tell him?”

It takes a moment to get everything organized in my head. I haven't thought this out. Something's wrong and I don't know what it is, but still … I need them to come inside to talk with Reese. Everything's going to be better once they do.

“Mostly everything—”

“
What?
” Ember's alarm travels even mind-to-mind. “You told him about us? Our connection?” It's weird that she doesn't worry about me talking about the sex—which I don't think I did—but focuses on our invisible connection to each other.

“No,” I say slowly. “Just that Shreve has a plan.”

“Did he ask about the plan?”

What should I say here—should I tell her he did and that I answered him? Even though she knows that we don't know what the plan is at all?

“No, he remembers Shreve. Likes him,” I say. “He wants us to come inside and have some food and warm up before we go.”

“That sounds good,” Tap says, rubbing his hands together. “I'm overdue for a visit to the john.”

“Who else was there?”

“A few other extranats. Blackwell and Galine?”

“The old Red Team.” Ember scowls. “Who else? The Bomb?”

“No, he said she took off with her guards. Some guy tried to grab her or something and got shot.”

Ember's face darkens, and I can see the thoughts churning under the surface there. “So, he's just gonna come with us, just like that?”

“Yeah.”

“You're lying to me,” Ember says, taking two steps away.

“Hey!” I say, reaching out to her. She has to understand! Everything will be better once she goes inside. “It's cool! He's gonna come with us! Let's just—”

Ember launches herself into the air, arcing away across the vault of heaven. I've never seen her fly so fast.

I leap after her with Tap close behind. The force of the wind with our speed is brutal.

Ember! Come back!

She's like a bullet crossing the sky. She passes over the valley's lip, racing up the mountainside and into the empty air above the snow-clad peaks, and then she's gone from sight.

But I hear her. I hear her screaming into the space-not-space between us all.

Shreve! SHREVE! We have him! Come to us!

And something trembles there, between us, that thin connection, indistinct and wavering. I must catch her before she can ruin everything.

Something shifts inside of me, and Tap gives a cry because even hanging in the air, falling in space like angels on the wing, I feel an eye fixing upon me. I feel a consciousness turning its attention toward me even as I chase after Ember. And I know what's coming. If only she had listened.

If only she had come inside.

thirty-six

SHREVE

On the inside, everyone's the same. From the heartbroken to the dumbstruck, the burdened and the carefree. The fathers and mothers, sons and daughters. The innocent and the guilty. They're all grist for the Conformity's mill.

Once, I contained multitudes, waking from dreams of other lives. Once, I was large and could take within me the full expanse of humanity.

But I have become small now, infinitesimal.

Just Shreve.

It's a buzzing I feel, insistent and frantic, at the edges of my awareness. The world shifts and sways around me, like I was some drunken sailor, cast off of the sea.

You ride the horse; you ride every day, and still your balls never really get used to the abuse. Your taint gets callouses, and
still
you'll be sore at the end of the day. And then when you dismount, the world shifts and sways around you, like you're still moving.

Casey's riding near me—she stays near, always, because I'm one of the suckiest riders ever to mount a horse—and her smile is genuine and warm. We stayed in the husk of a roadside motel last night. With our own room. The bed was warm and so was she.

All the lives I've lived before didn't prepare me for it. Couldn't prepare me for
her.

But she smiles at me now. A secret smile. It's not fooling Negata. He's ridden point most of the day. “I will scout ahead, Shreve, and see what I can see,” he said, and then he glanced from Casey back to me. “Look for me this afternoon.”

When he returns, he is strangely quiet, with nothing to share or report. Casey stays near me. Sometimes I feel her invisible hand on my own. It's not warm, but it is warm in my memory.

Part of me feels as though I'm in a dream. The world is dressed solely in black and white and gray now, preparing for either a funeral or a wedding. It can't make up its mind. We ride through white fields like ghosts, as if we've passed some border into the territories of death or dreams. The trees scrabble at the sky, stark and bare. The horses plume steaming breaths into the quickening air. It's snowing again, and the
shshshssssssssshhhhh
sound of snow falling blankets everything, all other noises.

The world's ending. And I'm happy. I have nothing except myself. Her warm body. I thought I knew the warm territories of flesh, but I didn't. I didn't know. A thousand filched memories, and I didn't know anything.

The buzzing gets louder, and for a moment I'm reminded of the thrumming, surging presence of the Helmholtz. It's an insistent bug, buzzing in my hindbrain. Something's wrong.

“Do you feel that?” I ask Casey.

She sits upright in her saddle, looking around quickly. “No, I don't feel—”

SHREVE!

The connection is faint but there. Ember.

Casey's face turns worried; she chews her lip. Grasps my hand with her invisible one.

It seems like forever since I've gone beyond myself. Like some slumbering bear, I have to rouse myself. Expand. Become more than just me. Part of me's sad that it's come to this. That I am not enough. That I must become more. But there it is. A movement driving me all my life. Becoming more. I slip into the ether, up and out of my body. Out and away in the space-not-space where distance is crossed as like a passing thought.