Veracity (44 page)

"Harper Adams," I say. "And you are?" She won't answer because she's not supposed to and because she never does a goddamned thing to break the rules. I'd wager my pay card on it. "You are?" I repeat, not caring if it comes out sounding rude. She can't expect me not to ask.

"Harper!" Mr. Weigland leans forward.

I turn in my seat so he can't snatch the phone out of my hand.

"I would feel exactly the same way you do, Miss Adams. But you know I can't give you my information." A pause. She's lost her voice. It comes back cracked, like a poor transmission. "This is hard for all of us."

Christ
. She isn't so docile, doesn't sit around in noxious church circles, maybe.
Maybe
is nice.

"I'm sorry." I have to push it out.

Her niceness should comfort me. This woman is taking care of my child, after all. But I'm selfish. I need something to tell me that my daughter won't love her more. Not now. Not later when she grows a woman's body, loves a boy who doesn't love her back, falls into the real world and loses some of her faith.

"I don't know how to start this," I say, needing to dig my way out of this bitterness and prepare myself for Veracity. I need to be happy when she gets on the line. I need her to be listening when I warn her.

"Harper." The woman says my name too carefully. Immediately, I know what's coming. "I don't know how to say this any other way. We can't get Sarah to come to the phone."

The blood falls from my face. Mr. Weigland sees it. He reaches around my turned body and puts his hand on the phone. "You need me to talk to her? Let me talk to her . . ."

"No," I say.

My daughter's new mother thinks I was talking to her. "Both my husband and I feel it's not right to pressure her," she says beautifully. In that tone that means,
I will not let you harm my child
.

"I was talking to my boss."

"I'm sorry . . ."

"No." I clear my throat. "Let's not use that word anymore. Okay?" I'll start crying.
Sorry
is the best descriptor of this situation. It doesn't need any further evidence. "What's your name?" I whisper, begging. "Just so I know . . ."
Whatever I can know from a first name
. Which will be mostly about this woman's parents: were they conservative or liberal; romantic or stoic; did they have her prior to the Pandemic or after. The name they chose for her will answer these things.

Mr. Weigland stands up. Erect, disapproving. "They're not supposed to give names."

I nod into the phone. "Never mind. It's okay . . ."

"Sophia." She's almost crying.

Sophia. It's a good name. Unconventional, which means she went through the Pandemic. Has probably suffered some and grown past needing the hard lessons. These are all good things pointing to normal. Telling me she'll know how to love Veracity. How quickly my needs turn. Now I want her to be a saint, a warrior, a safety net. My cardboard cutout.

Mr. Weigland presses a tissue into my hand and it baits the tide. I start to cry. "Is she okay?" My voice wobbles over the question.

"Fine." Sophia is nodding. Dabbing at her eyes. I can hear the movement, the creasing tissues. "Happy as she could be, considering."

Happy.
I'll be glad she's told me this later. But not now. "Why won't she get on the phone?"

The husband is listening. I hear the low drone of his voice behind hers, suggesting, comforting. They're deciding together what to say. I hear the woman call him by name.
Jeremy.
Perhaps she's done this for me.

"Sophia?"

She puts her lips right up next to the mouthpiece. Cups a hand over the answer. "She just . . . doesn't understand." Sophia breaks for a moment to take a breath. "There's just never going to be a good enough answer. Do you understand?"

I sob. Don't try to hide it. "Listen to me . . ."

"I'm listening."

"Work with her on her Red Words."

"We will. We already do."

"It's important!" I say it with more force than I'd wanted. "Please. She could get hurt if she says one accidentally. I mean, she
will
get hurt if she tries to say even one. Do you understand? I've dreamt it," I say. "I know it."

There is a pause on the other end of the line.

Sophia comes back softly. "Okay." Then stronger, with understanding. "Absolutely. I promise. We promise."

"Thank you," I say, though I don't think she hears me.

Or maybe I haven't said it.

All I can think about is getting off the phone. Running down the long main hall and lying down in the women's rest-room. I want to rest my head on the cool tile.

"Will you tell her that I love her?" My mouth is wobbling. My words come out so warped, I don't know how Sophia understands.

But she does. "Yes. We will . . ."

I give the phone to Mr. Weigland and turn away. I can hear Sophia's voice assuring me, "We love her, too." It's in the air. Floating down like a feather. Landing like a lead weight.

Mr. Weigland takes my place. He tells them not to be too upset. It's natural. We'll try again in a year, maybe two. Then puts the receiver back in its cradle.

"Harper," he says.

I don't answer.

"Harper." He leans forward. Puts his hands over mine. "She's safe."

I interlace my fingers with his. "Thank you."

Mr. Weigland's voice is the barest whisper, more a thought than spoken words. "No, Harper. Thank you."

Winter is shoring up in the western sky. We feel it behind us like an invisible hand. It's the third week of October and we've made frustrating progress. We stop for week-long periods of time to secure towns between Bond and Wernthal, now referred to as Washington. Our group consists of roughly one hundred members of the resistance. Some of us are newly organized Armed Forces. These new troops carry weapons as we move, flanking the rest of us and acting as our armor. The majority of our group is soon to be inducted into a governmental body called
Congress
. We've taken the slow way to our new capital in order to talk to members of the communities through which we pass. We're getting to know our
constituents
--the people who will be represented by these Congressional Members in a new administration. We are one of many groups marching across the country toward Washington, providing outreach and collecting data.

Our group started small with strictly members of the resistance, but grows with every new town. We come into a place like a snowball, or maybe more like a swarm of locusts, descending in vast numbers, needing shelter, food, and drink. When we leave, refurbishing trucks have to follow to keep the town stocks full. Despite our consumption, most are more than happy to have us. Often, they're waiting for us at the new county lines, eager to set up a library and get what we've started calling our catch-'em-up courses, provided free to
schools. We've even been thrown something called a
parade
--an embarrassing show of gratitude that has us sitting on top of cars. Waving to the others who're relegated to the sidewalks that line the streets. When we leave, we've collected a new cadre of cadets--women and men who want to be a part of things and a better world for their children.

People are hungry for copies of
Noah,
handed out on portable drives. They get a taste of what they've been missing, freedom of speech, a language that maps to all the things they've been feeling and needing, and they're hooked. And they're angry. They are learning the extent of their bondage via the things from which they've been kept.

In each county hub, a group of government liaisons has been set up. These liaisons have been put on, for lack of a better term, Media Watch. As changes pour in, they call meetings that a representative from each town must attend. Representatives then take these updates to their communities, passing on the status of such things as the development of money institutions called Banks, the free health clinics being set up, when the gasoline trucks will arrive, how to register for reassignment to all the new positions that are about to be opened up, and so on.

Until we get to our new capital and take on our administrative duties, Lilly and Noam are in charge of setting up digital libraries in former administrative buildings. My job has been to go into a town ahead of our group and use my abilities to search out potential threats. There are always a few Confederation loyalists hiding in somebody's basement. Or die-hard Blue Coats holed up in the admin building's safe zones. There is an awful resemblance between this job and BodySpeak. I stretch out my hand and point to people whose colors are suspicious and they're taken into custody. Held for questioning by a jury of their peers. As long as that second part happens, I'll have to choke it down. I can only imagine what John would think if he was around. I've become a cop of sorts. Doing the dirty work myself so other, worse people
won't get the chance. It is my prejudice come full circle. And my understanding.

Only Lazarus and a few other key members have been picked up and flown out early. These acting members of our administration are overseeing and implementing changes too numerous to list. It will be four or five weeks before Lilly, Noam, and I get there. A month or a little over before I get to see John again, and how everything in my former home has changed.

I think of John every day. Wonder what he's seeing and doing and where he is. On the worst days, I pick a point on the road coming into whatever town we're in and imagine him appearing over the horizon. Running or walking, sometimes on a horse, behind the wheel of a car, his face lit up. I think of John every day but won't let myself think of Veracity. I don't know what's happened to her. There are too many possibilities. I need us to get to the capital before it snows and we're stuck in one of these small towns with poor reception and no connection to the online lists being constantly updated. Lists that tell us who's still living by the inverse information of who's dead.

In this rural portion of the former Confederation, news of the war travels slowly. Men and women donning the couriers' signature red cross stitched onto one sleeve come into town on foot, horseback, T-Unit, or car. They bear huge stacks of printed records of those who've been killed and those who are missing. Sometimes Lilly's receiver begins spitting up names of the dead, lost, or wounded and people come running, bleary-eyed. Some already crying.

The third week in, Lilly finds her niece on the Casualties List. The next week, her nephew. After that, she stops looking and listening. Begins running the other way every time a courier is seen making haste into town or when her receiver starts crackling.

The fifth week in, I hear names coming out of Lilly's radio I hadn't anticipated:
Sophia Williams
and
Jeremy Williams.
Sophia and Jeremy, the names of my daughter's new parents. Then following them--
Sarah,
my daughter's new name. The announcer explains that their home has been bombed, but no bodies have been found. They're being presumed
lost,
not
dead
. It could be some other group of people, the three names a fluke. The waiting to see is intolerable.

Lazarus has written to tell me he's made it a special job of his to find my daughter. In a handwritten note, he advises me I'm not to lose my focus and start worrying. He's put the best of the best on the case. As soon as they find Veracity, I'll know. And this special dispatch will find Veracity alive and well.
Even if I'm not a Sentient,
he writes,
I feel that Veracity is very much alive and well. I feel it in these worn-out old bones.

Lilly, Noam, and I are in a town named Chester, sleeping in a tavern during our stay. This morning, as soon as the light comes through the main hall's shuttered windows, Lilly shakes me awake. She tells me something came for her last night by pony mail. Something I'm supposed to see.

I roll out of my sleeping bag, already dressed. Tuck my hair under a hat someone gave me two towns back and follow Lilly into the cold, empty street. I'm too tired to ask her where we're going. Mostly, I don't want to know.

We sludge along a few blocks, then take a turn into what must have been a police station. Two guards are standing just inside. They recognize Lilly and wave us in. We walk down a long corridor studded with offices and stop at what I recognize as an old interrogation room.

"Hello, Lilly." A man with white hair and wild gray brows greets her with a big, gap-toothed grin. He's sitting at the only desk and stands as we enter. "So good to see you again."

"You just saw me yesterday," Lilly says roughly.

"I did!" the man replies, unfazed. "And hopefully I'll see you again tomorrow!" He smiles even larger, picking at his teeth with the tip of a long fingernail. He turns to me and
offers his hand. "Reginald Parker. I used to teach at the University of Illinois with Lilly here."

"Nice to meet you." We shake.

Lilly is exhausted. She waves a hand at the man who so obviously adores her. "Where are we doing this?"

Reginald motions us into two chairs. "Right here."

Lilly sticks a hand into her satchel. It's wide and deep. Bulging with all the things we have to carry with us, as there are no more walk-in restaurants or corner pharmacies. Lilly's anxious to find something that's not coming easily into her hand.

"What is it, Lilly?" I ask.

She puts her whole face at the purse's mouth. "A disk."

"What's on the disk?"

"I don't know," she says. "John sent it to me. I'm supposed to show it to you first thing this morning."

I look down at my chair. There are the same brown armrests from my nightmare. And my legs, wearing the same corduroy pants. If I'd known we were coming here to see this, I'd have changed clothes.