Unraveled (21 page)

“Arras exists over Earth,” Jax continues.

“We know that,” Dante says, but Falon shushes him.

“As I was saying,” Jax says, shooting Dante an annoyed look, “the two worlds exist
relative to each other. However, Arras only exists because of Earth.”

“Okay, now you’ve lost me—” Dante admits.

“Dear boy, you’ve seen the mines. Use your imagination,” Albert interrupts him. The
scientist is busy jotting notes. I can’t figure out why. I know he understands things
we can’t quite grasp. But then he holds up the sheet in front of him, revealing a
series of complex equations.

“I think I speak for everyone—except Jax—when I say
what
?” Erik says.

“I’m with Erik on this,” I say.

“Oh never mind,” Albert says. He crumples the paper into a ball and tugs off his sweater.
He digs into its loose weave and begins pulling out a thread. It unravels until there’s
a small hole in the arm of the sweater. “I could take this yarn and make a new sweater,
correct?”

I nod.

“But if I did,” Albert continues, “I would destroy
this
sweater.”

“So Arras is unraveling Earth,” I say, “but we know that.”

“Unfortunately, the existence of Earth is more vital to the universe than my sweater
is,” Albert says dryly. “If I unravel this sweater, it has no great effect on space-time,
except to make me a bit colder.”

“What happens to the universe if Earth unravels?” I ask.

Jax jumps in. “A singularity.” But then he looks sheepishly at Albert as though he’s
spoken out of turn.

Albert waves off Jax’s interruption. “No, explain with your images. It’s much easier
to understand.”

“I got the sweater bit,” Erik says to Albert.

“What’s a singularity?” Jost asks. I’m surprised he’s here given that he finally has
his daughter back. I suppose her return is a reminder of what he’s fighting for.

“Well, it’s sort of like this,” says Jax.

On-screen the image shifts. We watch Arras grow from the Earth, leaving behind a hole
in its wake. Although Arras stays the same, the lines of light flowing into Arras
from Earth leave a larger and larger hole. Eventually the hole grows so large that
Earth begins to collapse into itself. A final bright flash of light leaves nothing
more than a large black circle in its wake.

“What the Arras was that?” I ask.

“That’s a singularity,” Albert says in a grim voice.

“Basically, by taking Earth’s resources, Arras is jeopardizing Earth’s existence in
the universe,” Jax explains.

“But where did it go? Where’s Earth?” Erik asks.

“In the event of a singularity, Earth will cease to exist. A massive well of gravity
will pull everything—even light—inside the singularity, destroying Earth
and
Arras.” Jax pauses to let this sink in.

“What happens inside a black hole?” I ask.

“We don’t know,” Jax says. “Gravity is infinite in one, so it’s impossible to tell.”

“Meaning?”

“
Nothing
. Nothing will exist.”

“So in this scenario,” Erik asks slowly, “everyone dies?”

“Yes. Death. No doubt. The atoms might survive somehow and somewhere, or rather the
leptons, quarks, and other subatomic knickknacks.” Albert says the words with a fair
amount of annoyance, as though this is all perfectly obvious. But even hearing him
say it doesn’t make it feel any more real.

“Cormac must not know this. Even he wouldn’t be so foolish as to destroy
everything
,” I say.

“He knows,” Jax says. “More and more of the Guild Tailors and scientists have been
defecting—fleeing to Earth and seeking us out. We believe he’s planning a controlled
demolition.”

“What does that mean?” I ask slowly.

“If he can mine enough resources from Earth and then control its destruction, he might
be able to prevent the singularity.”

“Might?” Erik says, shaking his head. “Fantastic plan.”

“There has to be a contingency for this,” Dante says, running a hand through his hair.

And then I realize there is.

“Protocol Three.” To my surprise it’s Loricel who speaks.

“What is Protocol Three?” I ask Einstein. He has to know, with his intimate knowledge
of the Guild.

“Cormac mentioned it. Well, actually, he sort of threatened it.”

“That does not shock me,” Loricel says. “Protocol Three is the ultimate threat response.”

“Stop speaking in riddles,” Dante demands.

“There are three protocols for dealing with trouble in Arras,” she says.

“Protocol One is alteration,” Erik says. He shrugs at me, mouthing,
Misspent youth
.

“The Guild employs Protocol One to contain information and deal with troubling behavior,”
Loricel explains.

“They used it here,” I tell them.

“But the dissent was widespread and Protocol One became ineffective in coping with
the situation,” she continues. “Which leads to Protocol Two.”

“They sever an entire sector from Arras,” I say.

“Have you ever wondered why it is the Guild of Twelve Nations?” she asks.

I swallow hard on the question and nod.

“Only four sectors remain of the original twelve,” Loricel says.

“The others were severed?” Jost asks.

“Yes. When a sector became too progressive, it was separated from the whole, or when
a disease broke out, or if one wanted its independence. Protocol Two was how they
dealt with these situations,” she explains.

“So Arras was larger?” Dante asks.

“It was more divided. Once a separated sector ran out of resources and unraveled,
we extended the remaining sectors to take its place.”

“And no one noticed?”

“Over time as sectors were detached, we simplified the map and revised history to
reflect that there were only four sectors. Because of education control, it was easy
for the Guild to ensure the people only knew what they were told.”

“But it was happening all around them!” I can’t believe this, and yet I know it to
be true.

“It’s easier to focus on the life around you than to see the whole picture,” she says.

“Then what will happen to this sector?” I ask. “What do you mean by ‘unraveled’?”

“Extermination?” Jost asks with disgust.

“The disease in the streets only increases the rate of the sector’s decay.”

“We need to get everyone out of this sector,” I say.

“What do you think we’ve been doing?” Falon asks in an annoyed voice.

“It’s been weeks!”

“Do you think you could have done better?” she asks.

“This is getting us nowhere,” Dante says. “We’re working on a plan, Adelice. We expect
to have survivors out within a week.”

“What about the sick?” I ask.

“We can’t take them,” he says.

I can’t help but feel disappointed in Dante. He had once set my mother free even though
the Guild had turned her into a monster, but now he was turning his back on the people
of the Eastern Sector.

“Unfortunately, if what you say is true, the virus progresses so rapidly we have no
time to find a cure,” Loricel says. “But the diseased represent a clear and immediate
threat to our operations here.”

“It doesn’t sound like we’ll be safer on Earth,” Erik mutters.

Next to him Jost has gone pale. No doubt he’s wondering how to protect Sebrina. I
want to kick Erik right now.

“Can we prevent the singularity?” I ask, trying to focus on something positive.

“That is what Protocol Three is for,” Loricel explains.

If the first two protocols alter people’s psychology and destroy whole metros, I’m
not sure I want to know what Protocol Three does.

Albert is the one to finish the explanation. “Protocol Three will end the Cypress
Project.”

“End it?” I echo. The Cypress Project was once an idea—the theory that with machines
men could manipulate the most basic strands of the universe to create a perfect world.
Now that idea was Arras itself.

“The men who created it were scientists. It stands to reason we would create a termination
procedure if the experiment was deemed a failure,” Albert says.

“And Arras is a failure?” I ask, feeling slightly insulted.

“It will be a failure if it results in the death of two worlds.”

“But the people in Arras—”

Loricel holds up her hand. “Protocol Three will allow for total evacuation of every
metro in Arras before the world unravels.”

“And that’s it?” I ask. “We press a button and then poof! No more Arras?”

“That oversimplifies things a bit, but—precisely,” Albert says.

In a way it’s what I wanted, but I’ve seen Earth and I know the hardships generations
will endure rebuilding that world.

“You would let Arras go?” I ask Loricel.

She laughs at this. “I’ve been trying to let it go for hundreds of years.”

I can’t help it. I don’t want to see Arras destroyed. Does that make me the same as
Cormac?

“You spoke to me once of the greater good,” I say to her.

“Age understands what youth cannot,” she replies, but she offers no other explanation.

“How do we do it?” I ask.

Jax and Albert share a look and my stomach clenches.

“That’s the hard part,” Albert says.

TWENTY-ONE

A
CCORDING TO
J
AX, WE PRETTY MUCH HAVE
to bust into the Guild offices in Cypress, hack their controls, and start evacuation
procedures. Which will work—if we don’t get caught. Returning to Guild-controlled
Arras unnoticed won’t be simple, especially if we need to break into the Ministry
offices. But then there’s still the matter of the self-destruct code—a code only Cormac
knows.

Because we wouldn’t want this to be too easy.

“I can get it out of him,” I say finally.

“I would love to know how you’re going to do that,” Falon says.

“You have to let me go back. I can claim I was kidnapped and escaped.”

“He’s not going to believe that,” Jost says.

“I don’t care if he believes it,” I say. “I only need to get close to him.”

Cormac might be eager enough to continue the wedding charade to go along with my lie,
and I’d only need a little time to get him alone.

“No way.” It’s Erik who speaks, which surprises me, considering the distance he’s
kept since I arrived. But one look at his face and I know he’s serious. I’m not sure
how I feel about that.

I open my mouth to argue with him, but Dante raises his hand. “It has been a long
day. Adelice should rest. We should all rest.”

As soon as he says it, I realize I am tired. More tired than I’ve been in weeks. I
can’t quite stifle a yawn.

“We need a plan,” Falon says.

“And we can come up with one eight hours from now. But we aren’t going to come up
with anything if we’re tired and arguing,” Dante says in a gentle tone.

“I believe you should all spend the evening with those you love,” Albert advises.
“Our time here is growing short.”

I don’t want to ask him what he means—whether our time in Arras is growing short,
or our time in general.

“I’m going to see to Sebrina.” Jost looks at me and then at his brother. The two share
a very serious nod. Have they perfected an entire secret code while we’ve been apart?

“We created some bunkers in abandoned offices. You can sleep there,” Dante says to
me.

Dante leads me up a narrow flight of stairs and Erik trails behind us. Dante stops
at a door and gives Erik and me an appraising look as he opens it. “I think I’m supposed
to give you a lecture or something. As your father.”

“About?” I ask, moving inside the room.

He laughs at me, and it hits me.

“Oh.”

“You two should talk.” Dante turns to leave, looking back once but finally throwing
his hands up in the air, and mumbling to himself as he leaves Erik and me alone.

The door shuts too slowly behind him. Erik’s arms are around me immediately, pulling
me in to him. The distance I felt before is gone, replaced by urgency.

“I thought—” Then his lips cover mine.

Erik breaks away, his hands cradling my back. “You thought I’d changed my mind?” he
guesses.

I nod, suddenly overcome by emotion that creeps hot up my throat, moving toward my
eyes. I can’t hold it back and it spills onto my cheeks. Erik brushes away my tears,
kissing my cheeks where the tears fell.

“Never,” he says in a quiet voice. “I was trying to be … professional.”

“Professional? That’s new,” I say a bit too coldly.

“When my brother is around, I don’t want to upset him. He’s lost a lot. I had to focus
on helping him rescue Sebrina. I owed him that.”

“You’re being thoughtful,” I realize out loud. Of course our feelings for each other
would threaten whatever peace Erik and Jost have found in my absence.

“But I hurt you.” Erik’s hands fall away from me, and I miss his touch immediately.

“No, I understand,” I say, shaking my head as the petty anger I felt minutes before
releases me. “I should have known what you were trying to do.”

We linger for a moment in silence, neither of us sure what to say. But I can feel
the pulse of my heart throbbing through my blood, stirring me to life, willing me
to close the space between us. Erik and I were friends for a long time, but this is
new. We’re still learning how to be together and what we’re willing to share with
the rest of the world.

“While they were talking about strategies,” Erik says, taking a strand of my hair
in his fingers, “I could only think about kissing you.”

I try to hold back the smile that jumps to my lips, but I can’t, not entirely.

“Unfortunately, the strategy room isn’t the place to make up for lost time,” he says,
a smile curving onto his face.

“We’re not there now,” I remind him.

He doesn’t need any more incentive. The bunker’s emergency lights flicker around us
and with one smooth motion Erik flips the generator switch, flooding the room in darkness.
I can’t see him in the blackness, but I sense his presence and I feel his heat radiating
as he draws me to him. His lips move along the curve of my jaw and linger at my ear.