Wordless (3 page)

Rather than take all the bags to the truck at once, I left one in the alley. When I returned for it, I picked it up but didn’t stop there. Moving quickly, I followed the alley toward the lawn I’d spotted at the other end. I just had to see who lived in places like these, these boxes within a box, and who somehow felt they could control the lives of the rest of us.

I burst into a grassy courtyard, which was surrounded by an elegant building that rose to the sky like an inverted tower. There was nowhere to hide the fact that I was trespassing here, and the pinched lady’s warning not to wander echoed helpfully in my mind.

I turned to hurry back through the alley to the truck—and stopped dead.

On a balcony several stories above me, a girl leaned against the railing, gazing up at the distant sky with longing—or maybe with only what I imagined was longing, because that was how I looked up at the sky from trash-filled alleyways. Like I wanted to sprout wings and escape it all. Her viewpoint might have been better than mine, but at least I didn’t have to look through massive panes of glass to see the clouds.

Still, this wasn’t what I’d been expecting. The trash bag slipped from my fingers and landed in the grass with a clunk.

She glanced down. The new angle revealed her features better: she was about my age, with dark-chocolate hair parted in a long, wavy curtain around a smooth, medium-toned, mind-blowingly beautiful face … a face that briefly registered surprise as she saw me, then nothing.

I recognized her then.

She straightened abruptly, as if she’d heard my thoughts. She turned, vanishing inside, but not before the odd, backless cut of her black shirt confirmed what I already knew.

She was lined with markings so black they stood out against her honey skin, covering her from the nape of her neck to her slender waist, and probably even farther but her pants blocked my view. That would have been unfortunate in other circumstances, but here, now, I’d seen enough. More than enough.

She was one of the Words. The Word of Life; the one I never saw smile on TV.

I didn’t stick around for an introduction. I snatched up the trash bag and ran like hell.

three

When Drey picked me up at noon, I didn’t tell him I’d seen one of the Words. He didn’t need to know how close I’d come to getting into deep shit—or fired—on my first day. I wasn’t positive, but I imagined people like me weren’t supposed to stare slack-jawed at the Words on their private balconies, let alone come within a thousand-foot radius of them. I’d been told not to wander, and that was probably why.

The security guards didn’t bar the gate when Drey dropped me off for work the second day, and I breathed a sigh of relief. As weird as the Athenaeum was, this job was definitely something different, and I didn’t want to lose it quite yet.

The early morning sun soon grew bright outside, but the greenhouse effect that I expected to develop underneath the pyramid never happened. The place was apparently the biggest damned sun umbrella in the world. The glass panes took on a tint as the morning wore on, which should have made everything dim, but even that was counteracted by enormous lights ringing the peak of the pyramid. They were as bright—but not as hot—as small suns. Probably the work of the Words of Darkness and Light.

These people hadn’t just created a city-within-a-city; they’d created their own little universe, as if they were the Gods themselves. The Athenaeum was like a fantasyland for the Words and their entourage. It was hard enough to get a passport into Eden City; living in the Athenaeum must have required a passport plated in gold.

I still couldn’t believe that this job had just landed in my lap, like a gift from the sky. This strange, shining place sure had some nice wrapping, but I didn’t know what it really held inside. The best presents I’d ever gotten—which were all from Drey, since he was the only one who ever gave me presents—came wrapped in black plastic bags and utility tape.

I went about my day as I had the first, retrieving my truck from a parking lot inside the gate and driving nearly the same route, making a few adjustments for efficiency’s sake. In fact, I finished earlier than I had the day before, and in the same place: the heart of the pyramid. Continuing down the road would take me back to the exit, while a quick right onto a side street would take me to the alley and
her
courtyard—if the monitored gate let me pass a second time. I tapped the steering wheel in indecision.

Maybe today was too much like yesterday, because I found myself turning right and driving toward the alley, like some other force was in control of the little truck.

It was like poking at a candle flame when I knew I’d get burned, just because it looked warm and pretty. I was secure enough in my masculinity to admit that the girl—the Word—had scared the piss out of me, but I also wanted to see her face one more time, maybe to convince myself she wasn’t as lonely-looking as I’d thought. Nor as hot—hot enough to melt my brain to gooey stupidity with a glance.

At least she wasn’t the Word of Fire. Because then she really could melt or burn me—to skeletal ash, according to the rumors.

When I reached the gate, I slammed on the brakes harder than I meant to. I must have lost my mind. No girl’s face was worth getting fired.

Then I saw it, through the bars of the gate and the narrow gap between buildings: a black trash bag on the grass underneath her balcony. There was no way into or out of the courtyard other than the alley, so it had either been carried there deliberately … or dropped from above, as if someone wanted to get my attention.

Something about the best gifts being wrapped in black plastic came to mind.

I leapt out of the truck with a silent command for my common sense to shut up, received a green light after my eye-scan, and arrived in the shade under her balcony like I had the previous day: in a nervous rush, all the while trying to appear calm and purposeful.

I didn’t know what I’d been expecting. The Word to be waiting? She wasn’t, but maybe she would still come. I looked up, eagerness and impatience bouncing me on my toes.

Here I was, trying to talk to one of
them
—and probably about to get caught.

No one appeared on the balcony, and I was getting more anxious by the second. Eventually I snatched up the trash bag—it was surprisingly light—and took off, not quite as fast as the day before. After all, I was just doing my job, carrying garbage.

Only after I’d returned to the truck, the bag tossed hurriedly next to me instead of into the back, did it occur to me to look inside it. The bag rustled like it was full of dead leaves as I opened it.

Not dead leaves. Crinkled wads of paper, pristine white as though fresh from the factory. Someone had deliberately crumpled up about a hundred brand-new sheets, just to make a trash bag look like it was full of trash.
What a waste. Unless …

I unfolded pieces of paper in a flurry, tossing each creased sheet on the floor as soon as I saw it was blank. It took half of the bag before found it: a sheet that wasn’t entirely blank.

Not that I understood the situation any better because there was writing on it. Two short words printed in neat lines. It had been written by hand—a rare sight these days, even if you weren’t wordless.

I crammed the sheet into my jacket pocket since I didn’t know what else to do with it, and stuffed all the other pieces of paper back into the bag. I knotted and swung the bag through the cab window, into the back of the truck with the other trash. The tires left behind some rubber as I drove away.

Drey probably wasn’t even waiting for me yet, so I eased off the gas, trying not to drive like someone who’d just robbed a bank. Because then I would look guilty. And I wasn’t guilty.

Right?

I smoothed the worry from my face as I turned toward the service gate that would take me out to the trash containers. Just in time. The two security guards were standing outside their booths, blocking my exit.

I mustered a grin as I slowed to a stop and stuck my head out the window. “Hey, boys.”

“That’s ‘officer’ to you,
boy
,” the closest guard said.

“Fair enough.” I shifted the truck into park. “What can I do for you,
officers
?”

“I’ve been instructed to give you something. It came from security headquarters.”

Security headquarters?
Cold sweat broke out on my forehead as he turned to his booth. I thought of the locked alleyway, its security camera and the Word I’d seen.
Shit.
Had she reported me? But then why would she slip me a message? Maybe someone else had finally realized I was nosing around where I didn’t belong. In any case, I was probably about to receive orders telling me not to bother coming back to work tomorrow. Or worse, orders for my arrest.

The guard returned and passed a manila envelope through the window. But he didn’t move out of the way. He obviously wanted me to open it in front of him. The city was visible through the gate, and for once I wished I could be out there instead of in here.

I unfolded the top flap of the envelope and shook a card out into my hand. Instead of just having a barcode for me to scan with my phone—how messages usually arrived—this card was laminated. It did have a barcode stamped on it, but also a shield and some words I couldn’t read.

I fumbled for my phone and almost dropped it as it came out of my pocket. I scanned the card with shaking hands.

“A message from Athenaeum Security,” a polite female voice intoned.

My phone’s screen immediately came alive, showing a young man wearing all black, from his high-necked, long-sleeved shirt down to his ass-kicker boots. I knew this person—
just like I knew his clothes were hiding something. And not just his muscular physique.

They hid the Words on his skin.

I’d only seen this Word once in a while on TV, and whenever I saw him, he was smiling like the others. But it was a smile that raised the hair on my arms, like now. He should have been my favorite Word, especially as a kid when I was still trying to see myself reflected in strong, cool
people. Both his eyes and hair were about the same shade of brown as mine, as was his tan skin, but that was where the similarities ended. It was easy to imagine him lunging out of the picture to kill me. He could kill with a touch, after all—in any way imaginable.

I guessed it made sense that the Word of Death would be the face of the security department. His pinky finger had more power than any gun.

But then a white man with gray-streaked brown hair and a gray suit—an expensive-looking suit—replaced the Word of Death on my screen. The man blinked, and I realized I was seeing a video recording instead of a picture. The time signature told me it wasn’t live.

“Greetings,” the man said. “I am Dr. Swanson. Your name and employee file was forwarded to me for clearance permission at approximately eleven-hundred hours yesterday morning.”

Which was right about when I’d first shown up outside the locked alley. I was definitely screwed.

Dr. Swanson continued. “Your position in the janitorial and maintenance department allows for this level of clearance, as did your background check. Please take this badge, indicating your new clearance level, for wherever eye scanners are unavailable. Be aware,” he added, almost as an afterthought, “that with your higher level of security clearance, it is now your responsibility to report any suspicious activity. Feel free to report to any member of our security team or even to me personally. Remember, help is never far away.”

To me, “be aware” sounded like
beware.
And despite his distantly friendly tone, the rest of his speech had come across as something like “I’ll be watching you.”

The screen went dark.

I was breathless, both with relief and with renewed fear. Was this a test? Was I supposed to report the strange note that I’d found, a note that was probably from the Word of Life? But she was one of the nine Words who ran the city. Why the hell would I need to report her? Was
she
testing me? I had no idea what to think. And I wouldn’t know until I’d deciphered her message.

I felt like puking, but I grinned again at the security guard. “Can I go, now, officer? I have a higher level of clearance, after all.”

The guard scowled and punched, rather than pushed, the button to open the outer gate.

I almost forgot to empty the bags into the containers outside after I passed through the gate, and to leave the keys on the driver’s seat for the security guard. And I nearly failed to stop myself from running instead of walking across the sun-baked parking lot to our garbage truck.

“Are you all right?” Drey asked as soon as he laid eyes on me. “You sick?”

I jumped in with only a shake of my head. I kept silent while he maneuvered the truck’s beefy mechanical forks to lift the containers, tipping the contents into the compactor. If I started talking about what was happening, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from admitting I’d sneaked into the Word’s courtyard and found her note. This job had been a favor from Drey, an
opportunity
, and I was most likely screwing it up spectacularly. The crumpled paper felt like a lead weight in my pocket. Never mind the laminated card in my other pocket.

I finished up the rest of our collection run without saying much. The old routine was colorless and boring after the excitement—too much excitement—of the Athenaeum. I was all but jumping out of my neon-green overalls with impatience, and maybe something closer to panic, by the time the day was over.

I closed myself in my room as soon as we returned to the garage, telling Drey I felt sick—which was actually true. As soon as I locked the door, I tore the piece of paper out of my jacket pocket and hurled it onto the metal desk like it was a live scorpion. Maybe it was even more lethal; I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t have an easy way to find out.

I spread the sheet flat on the desk. The near-perfect handwriting was still visible through the wrinkles. The page looked out of place in the room; Drey didn’t keep much paper around. Part of me just wanted to get rid of it, and fast, like it was incriminating evidence. There was a lighter underneath my cot, which I’d used for smoking a couple of times before I’d lost interest in making my mouth taste like a garbage incinerator. I
could
burn it.

But what if the message was important? What if it was meant for me? What if it was from her and it wasn’t some sick test of my loyalties to my new employer?

Maybe I needed to get rid of the paper, but not the message.

There was a postcard taped above the desk, the only decoration on the concrete wall. Drey said he’d found it in a trash container long before he’d found me in one.
Matterhorn, Switzerland,
the letters over the picture apparently said—Drey had asked someone who could read before he gave it to me. It showed a craggy mountain and a more wide-open sky than I’d ever seen. As much as I’d stared at the front of it, wishing I could be there, I knew the back was blank.

I tugged open one of the drawers in the desk, cursing when it protested with a shriek. The thing needed to be oiled—not that now was the time. Drey might be wordless, but he knew numbers and used to scribble down simple calculations for the garage, back before he started using his phone. My fingers scrabbled past a broken calculator for a dirty nub of a pencil that looked like it hadn’t been used in a decade. I certainly hadn’t been using it.

I slapped the postcard face-down next to the glaring white page and hunched over both, studying the incomprehensible message, the pencil gripped in my hand like a knife.

The first letter looked like scaffolding with only one shelf in the middle. I carved it as delicately as I could—though my dexterity was definitely lacking—into the postcard. The second letter was a little more difficult: a vertical line with three shelves sticking out to the right. The third was easy: a right angle like the square ruler out in the garage, which I almost wished I had for this project even though it would be unwieldy. The last letter of the word was like a hatchet standing upright, with a rounded blade facing to the right.