The Isle (25 page)

T
er and I raise our hands. Vomit rises from the fear curdling in my stomach.

“What are we gonna do?” I whisper, shaking.

The closest ranger jabs me in the ribs with the barrel of his gun—I drop my arms, bones throbbing. He does it again. “Hands up!”

Another ranger lifts his cuffcomm. “Magistrate Harcourt, we have the intruders. Bringing them to you now, as directed.”

The man prods Ter and me uphill, toward the dam's stony wall. He brings us to a second winding staircase this side of the river.

At the top, two hundred rangers point their guns over the stone embankment. Magistrate Harcourt stands in the
middle of the pathway, speaking feverishly with a group of men and women. The rangers usher Ter and me under an abandoned candy-cane-striped tent, where we're met with Benny and Callum, whose his cheek and jaw have started to turn purple. We cast each other looks, no idea how we're going to get out of this mess.

A few hundred feet downriver, where it's too shallow for such a large vessel, Chief Dunn's barge slows to a stop.

“Open the duct, Harcourt!” he commands, the ship's intercom at his mouth. His voice booms through the internal speakers. In unison, the thousand officers slam their barrels against the ship's floor. Then they slam again. It starts slow, but grows in speed. Soon, the rhythmic metal-on-metal echoes the pounding of a thousand hearts about to explode.

Magistrate Harcourt isn't shaken—he glares down at the chief, unknowing, barely offended by the threat. Holding his own megaphone, he hollers, “Quiet!” but the hammering only grows louder—until altogether, in unison, it stops.

The magistrate takes five seconds of calculated silence before speaking. “Chief Dunn! You recklessly put your people at risk! I don't want a massacre on my hands, so I have to ask: What are you playing at?”

“You think I'll show my cards that easily?” Dunn laughs, a tinny sound through the megaphone.

“I, Chief Craig Dunn, acting governor of the United Metro Islets, come to you with a single, peaceful request: Open. Our. Aqueduct. The city of Falls gets only one chance at peaceful negotiation.”

Magistrate Harcourt turns to a woman on his left with
auburn hair and deep crow's-feet. The two confer. Nodding, he shifts to the bald man listening at his other side. His face is expressionless. Their eyes meet; he agrees.

“This can't come to blows,” Callum whispers. “No news would spread faster across the globe.”

The magistrate calls over the nearest ranger and whispers something in her ear. A moment later, a troop surrounds Ter, Callum, Benny, and me.

What's going on?

The magistrate doesn't take his eyes off the chief. “Because I'm not a heartless man, I'm returning your paltry excuse for an espionage unit . . . albeit with a message.”

Unable to see us, Chief Dunn turns to his captain, confused.

“Girl.” Harcourt waves me over. “You're to tell your superior the following: The city of Falls does not, under any circumstance, comply with Chief Dunn's ‘peaceful' demand. You may play whatever cards you wish.” He whispers something to another ranger, and adds, “We are not afraid of war.”

Like a balloon popping, my lungs empty. I take breath after breath, but a tighntess squeezes against my brain, and I can't catch air.
Me?
I
have to pass Dunn this message?

Ter touches my back, only to have his hand swatted away by a gun.

Harcourt looks back over the embankment and reproachfully clicks his tongue. “Really, Dunn,” he says with mock pity, sending us down the stairwell, rangers at our backs. “Three children and an old man?”

By the time Dunn opens his mouth to deny it, we're
halfway down. He recognizes us, covers the megaphone to argue with his captain. They wait in silence.

All the way down the riverbank and through the tall grass, our circle of rangers follow. When I snag my foot on a rock and stumble, I'm shoved onward by a gun's thick barrel. Ter tries to take my hand, but another ranger divides us with her rifle.

Nearer now, we see how massive the barge really is—it's as wide as this river, with heavy-duty light fixtures built directly into its red metal siding.

On the hull, a painted tiger bares its teeth.

Chief stands at the ship's bow, unmoving. Only the twitch of his mustache declares him human, not statue. He's as taut as an arrow held back too long, hands crossed behind his back.

The docking ramp lowers.

Ter risks a touch—his fingers reach for mine. I grab on to them, panting. My palms begin to sweat, and I wipe them against my fatigues.

The rangers prod me forward, but not the others. I walk the plank in reverse, more afraid of Dunn than all the rangers combined. The barge carrying a thousand makes no noise as I step onto the vessel.

Chief Dunn stops me—I'm patted down by the five closest officers. I cover my body, shaking in anger. Water pricks at my eyes, so I bite the inside of my cheek to stop it.

I stare at the floor until they're done.

The orange-and-white tiger—she bares her teeth at me from the ship's bottom. Wide block letters circle her:
THE
ENGLE BENGAL, COMMERCIAL SHIPPING AND FREIGHT
.

When an officer announces that I'm clean, I grit my teeth. My cuffcomm is a snare, biting my wrist until I free the recording inside.
Chief Dunn needs to know Harcourt's stealing water
.

It could stop this war from going any further.

I'm a battlefield of nerves, skin ice-cold. The rangers behind Ter, Callum, and Benny haven't lowered their guns.

“The city of Falls does n-not—” I stammer. My tongue buckles under the weight of Harcourt's message. “—under any circumstance, comply with Chief Dunn's ‘peaceful' demand. You may play whatever cards you wish.” Pausing, I add, “Those were his exact words.”

A gun is fired.

I spin around.

The first act of war—Benny is doubled over the water's edge, gray smoke wisping from the ranger's gun. His white shirt turns the color of hate as he bleeds into the river, while Ter rushes to his side.

In unison, all the other rangers lift their weapons.

The shot was a message from Harcourt: He will not negotiate. Leave, or enjoy the blood he's not afraid to shed.

“Ready!” Chief Dunn shouts, loading his shooter. He drops to one knee and rests the barrel over the stern. Behind him, our thousand soldiers load their shooters as well.

Dunn raises his hand.

“Aim!”

My ribs burn, straining against my heart, and the world rolls away like a pair of dice—in seconds, it will land on a
number. The number amounts to the history of the world, about to change forever. An avalanche opens up beneath my feet, and I can see straight through the fire inside.

Hot tears collapse onto the ship, but I am not weak. I am no child.
I'm human.
I cry and I shake, because I am afraid of things bigger than Chief Dunn or a bullet in my chest.

“Wait!”

My voice whirlpools in the air, drawing every last officer's attention. It's hundreds in one, far louder than I thought was possible—I'm not just speaking for myself. It's a voice that would stop even Ren. “Harcourt has been stealing water from everyone—that's where all his extra comes from,” I announce, and quickly remove my cuffcomm. “I have proof. He was about to steal from Engle before you got here.”

I hold the comm for Chief to take.

His hand lingers in the air. The word
fire
sits on the tip of his tongue.

“Even more reason to lodge a dart between his eyes,” Dunn finally says, head cocked, peering into the shooter's viewfinder. Eyes never leaving his target, Dunn lowers his hand and gestures for the captain to take my comm.

“Hold fire!”

The captain projects the video onto the ship floor, and Dunn calls for two teams of officers. He sends one below deck. Moments later, they return with a yellow plastic gurney, and the second team marches down the ramp. As gently as possible, they lift Benny from the riverbank. Ter and Callum follow as they lay him, slack and barely breathing, onto the cot.

From there, Callum takes over, calling out supplies left and right.

Chief begins watching the holo projection, eyes dark. I rush past him, falling at Benny's side. His blue-veined hand is ice in mine. I breathe into it, watching the rise and fall of his chest like it's an antenna trying to catch a signal. His face is marble-white. Choking back a sob, I lay my head against his leg.

This would break Ren. . . .

“Up, up,” Benny breathes, tugging his hand free and waving me off his leg. “I'm not dead yet, kiddo.” I laugh at him and cry at the same time. Slowly, he opens his pale gray eyes. As he blinks, water runs down his temples; he's crying too. He looks like he saw a ghost. An officer hands me his canteen, and I bring it to Benny's mouth.

“Today's your lucky day,” Callum says, cauterizing the wound.

Benny winces, his face scrunching up. He stifles a yowl. Even his whiskers look wilty. “Do tell.”

“The bullet went straight through your shoulder. It did not hit
one
artery.” Callum begins wrapping Benny's shoulder in gauze. “A very clean wound.”

“So, Harcourt,” Chief says, having seen enough of the video. “Should I get Engle on the shortwave transmitter?”

Small and far from atop the dam, the magistrate doesn't answer. His wide bulk turns left, then right, arguing with his advisers. The bald man and the auburn-haired woman disagree—their hands wave in the air as they shoot each other ruffled looks.

“Do it,” Chief commands, and the captain reaches for a black box left of the helm. He lifts the intercom and begins twisting a dial, flipping through channels.

“Dunn!”

Magistrate Harcourt's voice rings out, echoing downriver. “How much do you want?”

Now, Dunn lifts his eye from the viewfinder. “A lifetime supply,” he answers easily.

Harcourt shakes his head, waving his hand over the dam. “You're joking.” His thin laugh echoes through the megaphone. “Try again.”

Dunn repeats himself. “A lifetime supply.”

“That'll cost me more than it would to admit fault, save face, and return the surplus! Never.”

“This is not negotiable. I'm getting Engle—and any other city you've cheated—on the intercom.”

No one notices the invisible signal Harcourt sent to his military. But like a clock striking midnight, each and every ranger drops to one knee.

Thousands of muzzles point at the barge simultaneously. Thousands of fingers, triggers, and bullets wait for the magistrate to give the final signal. I imagine the rounds being fired into the first five hundred of our small army—the bullets hitting organs. Organs repairing themselves. Officers standing and taking it again, round after round, until the water's all used up and the regeneration slows . . .

Stops.

In the tense air, Dunn's cuffcomm crackles with static. “Sir—”

Dunn's hand is back on the shooter, eyes focused on his target—now hidden behind a row of his rangers. Dunn doesn't move a muscle. His ears just listen.

“Sir—” the voice repeats, pitched with excitement. “We have found
freshwater.
I repeat. We have found
freshwater
.”

Dunn's gaze loosens. “Repeat that,” he says, loud enough for his comm's mic to pick it up.

“Freshwater, sir. We've found it. That ex-agent of yours—the Dane girl? She brought us right there. Died smack in the middle too. Her boyfriend had to fish her out and everything—a damn disgusting scene. But it's a freshwater spring, all right, deep enough to pipe off.”

Everything stops here.

I rush for the intercom. I'm water, screaming over rocks. Dunn's arm throws me to the floor—he holds up his other arm in a time-out, high enough for the magistrate to see. There's more negotiating, then jumping and screaming, hugging and shouting—electric nets fired into the sky.

I don't hear it. I cry into the orange-and-white tiger's heart, pummeling her with both my fists. I want her to fight back—she has to fight back. Because she's a tiger . . . and that's what tigers do.

Ren doesn't just
die.
It's not possible.

I
am emptied from one universe into another universe.

It has no stars. No galaxies growing in wombs, no cells dividing. No double-crossing double helixes. It has no planets. No gravity. It has the color black, but black's not a color, just an absence.

It doesn't even have me. Not really, not yet.

It has nothing—it's a void.

Deep in the absence, a spectrum ignites. At the speed of disappearing light, the curved universe flexes around the nothing of me, like a muscle. I fall and I fall through a dark matter tunnel, a barren wasteland.

The absence has dropped me.

I'm thrown into light but not air. In my third universe, I can't breathe. . . .

I'm born mostly dead.

“The umbilical cord—” a woman in a white coat says, then she curses. “It's wrapped around her neck.” She counts how many times it's tried to strangle me. The number is five. “I need you to push, Emilce. We have to get her out,
now
.”

“Stay strong, sister,” says a woman with a loose topknot.

But my shoulders are too wide . . .
now
isn't possible.

Here for half a moment, I'm emptied yet again—and for the first time—funneled back into absence. The black, curving void holds me. Because I am nothing, I have eyes everywhere: I watch as my mother pushes, but it's too late.

I'm already here, in the absence.

Twenty minutes later, the doctor pulls a still, blue body out from my mother. Her face, freckled and dark and round, changes shape. Horror fills the gasping O her mouth makes. The woman with the topknot, Miss Nale, rushes to Emilce's side. She squeezes her hand, kissing it a hundred times.

“I'll give you a moment while I inform your husband,” and I watch my mother cradle the body as the doctor leaves the room. My mother cries against the skin I was born into.

Her tears are my first rainfall.

Like a ragged animal cursing the moon, she screams. Her scream carries through universes. It pokes holes in the void, it wakes the strange blood in my body. It calls it to action.
Come back
, it begs.
Come back
.

I see now, this universe—it has a bone to pick.

Laying out the whirlpool of time, it finds a chaos that hasn't been ordered: A spring. A test. The first man who killed too many to make it his own. The second man. And the girl he
made, who could undo it.

Humanity will fail the test, but they will fail with flying colors.

Seeing all of time's forward-backward tumbling, the Earthbound universe intervenes, and the absence obliges.

It unhooks me. Throws me into the spectrum.

I scream.

My mother's face is a sun rising in the west. She cleans my body. She kisses my wet, round cheek—the one with freckles, soon.

“What in God's name . . .” Miss Nale staggers backward and clutches the headboard for support. “How can this be real?” she whispers.

My mother's hand cradles my head and then, like tripping on a rock, her smile slips away. I feel her heartbeat chase itself into the distance, each one faster than the next. She holds me close, pats my back, but her anxiety is in my blood too.

“Shut the door!” Emilce yells when the doctor returns.

The woman steps back. Hands cupped over her mouth, she whispers, “She couldn't breathe for twenty minutes. . . .” Her eyes dart between us. “I'll get your husband—”

Emilce's eyes don't leave mine. “No—you will do no such thing,” she says softly. She doesn't want me to worry. “Neither of you will ever say a word about this to my husband. Or to anyone else, for that matter.”

Beaming down at my round face, Emilce coos.

The doctor lays her stethoscope against my back, breathes, “But—but this is a miracle.”

“Exactly,” Emilce says. “My husband . . . he will ruin this child. She wouldn't be his daughter . . . she would be his greatest advantage. He'd find out what makes the miracle tick. He'd say it was for the ‘greater good,' but she'd still end up empty. He'd empty her. And I don't care about the greater good. I care only about the precious face staring back into mine.”

“I'm not sure I understand,” the doctor says, puzzled, as she looks at Emilce.

Miss Nale touches her sister's shoulder, and her worried eyes meet mine.

“My husband is not the man I once married. He's grown obsessed—” My mother looks away shiftily, not wanting to say too much. “He will want to find out just how big of a miracle she truly is. And if I'm right—if he's changed as much as I fear he has—she could spend the first year of her life in a lab.” Emilce closes her eyes and exhales. One last time, she kisses my forehead and then passes me to the doctor. She dries her nose with a handkerchief.

“Will you take her back to the Ward with you?” Emilce asks Miss Nale.

The doctor, jaw agape, reaches for Emilce's shoulder. “Mrs. Voss, you're tired,” she says with sympathy. “You don't know what you're asking of your stepsister. Why don't we leave you and your child alone, and we'll see how you feel in an hour?”

“Doctor, I have all my wits about me. I had a clean delivery, no drugs. My mind is not addled. Sister, tell me, will you do this thing I ask? Will you take her?”

Miss Nale kisses Emilce's head and retrieves the blue quilt from a chair in the corner. She wraps me up in it, then cradles me in her arms, and that is her answer.

“Doctor.” Emilce's voice is pure iron. “If I learn that you've told anyone about this, you will see your future as a medical professional ruined. Am I understood?”

The doctor points at my mother, opens her mouth. She quickly closes it. “It seems I have no choice,” she says bitterly. “I only hope you're making the right decision.”

“Time will be the decider in that. Not you, and not I.”

“Don't you want to give her a name?” the doctor asks accusingly.

Emilce thinks. “My husband is a great Latin scholar. I think the name ‘Renata' fits her well, ‘reborn' as she was.”

“Renata,” Miss Nale whispers, tucking me away.

“Renata,” my mother echoes, watching as I'm taken.

The scene evaporates behind us as the universe tumbles ahead. I'm fast-forwarded through moments like seedlings, reliving every juncture that grows me into
me—
who I am, or was, when I left the universe in Derek's arms.

I'm six, looking out at the West Isle, and for the first time, I understand they have more.

The first girl I almost become friends with shakes my hand. She's taken to a sickhouse the next day.

The first mother and father glance around Nale's classroom, looking for a child—I ignore them, and they ignore me.

Kids taunt me, call me mean, and so I get mean.

Aven . . .

When I see her, time and space stop. This Earthbound
universe closes its eyes. Bending to one knee, it places infinity in my hands. Asks if I want to take it. If I say yes, Aven and I could spin off together, create new universes. She wouldn't get the Blight and I'd be born with uncomplicated blood. We'd be adopted. Together—sisters.

It would let me out of here, if I wanted.

A choice.

Because the universe has rules, and even it is not free to break them. It saw a chaos; it intervened. But actions have equal, yet opposite, reactions, and now . . . now it must turn a blind eye. Tumbling backward and forward through infinity, I'm being given the opportunity to live for myself—not die for
it
.

I could say yes.

I could.

But I won't.

Back in the cave, I decided to be the thing that ends it. You don't just return from a choice like that, even when a universe offers you paradise. I'm changed . . . freed. I already broke my paradise apart and gave its nucleus away. Now there are thousands of new paradises germinating without me. No single one—not even my own—could grow so large.

I close the fist of the universe.