Flux (17 page)

“Now Nellie,” she said. “You’re not going anywhere, d’you hear? You’re a young girl, a mere scrap of a thing, and the world out there is too big for any one of us on our own. We’ve got an extra bed and enough food to keep you. You’ll stay here with us.” Plucking her purse from the top of the fridge, she continued, “Now I expect both of you to be in your chairs for supper at five sharp, no excuses. Deller, I’ve got a few things at the front door I need carried to the car.” Without another look at Nellie she walked out of the kitchen, Deller trailing uncertainly in her wake.

A hot sad breath gusted through Nellie and she sagged against the table, listening to their footsteps cross the living room floor. It had been a good act, she thought admiringly. Most adults ranted and threatened to hit, but Deller’s mother had just gone real quiet and given her speech as if she actually believed it. Of course she didn’t, not really. No adult thought they could actually
make
a kid do something. What Nellie couldn’t figure out was why an adult never
asked
a kid to do something. If Deller’s mother had looked her in the eye and
asked
her to stick around, well, that would have been a different situation entirely.

She was wearing a pair of pants and a T-shirt that probably belonged to Fen. Slipping through the back door, she stood listening as a car started up at the front curb. The wind came at her in a twisting whine, splattering her with a gust of rain. For a moment she considered filching Deller’s bike, then decided against it. Ducking her head, she took off down the alley, carried along on a long moan of wind.

NELLIE HEADED TOWARD
the river and the deserted warehouse that housed the Skulls’ headquarters. Though she’d decided not to continue living in Deller’s home, there was something in her that couldn’t quite give him up, not yet. Images of his face kept flashing through her head, tense with excitement as he’d talked about Fen’s disappearing act, or tracked with tears when she’d first told him about the cubicle. What would it be like to have a brother waiting for you like that, hoping and dreaming after you? There had never been anyone but a mother in Nellie’s life, her face tense and strained, peering through a series of endless windows. Had her mother ever cried for her? The question dropped through Nellie’s mind like a pebble through water, her thoughts rippling into silence. She couldn’t remember. She couldn’t remember ever seeing her mother cry.

The gusting wind and rain were herding most people indoors. Now and then someone rushed past, hidden beneath an opened
newspaper or umbrella. Days like this meant food was more difficult to come by, the weather forcing street vendors to take time off. Turning into a back alley, Nellie spied a delivery truck idling with its back door open as the driver darted into a store’s service entrance, carrying a load of bread. Without hesitating, she scrambled into the truck and snatched several packages of baked goods, then hit the ground running. Shouts erupted behind her, but she veered onto the nearest street without looking back. No one ever caught her. Most adults were too fat, and none of them knew the back alley network like she did. Give her two backyard fences, and she could lose anyone.

Tucking the baked goods under her T-shirt, she took off at a steady lope and reached the Skulls’ headquarters within ten minutes. Halfway down the block, a lone truck was pulling out of the only factory still in operation, and she ducked behind an office building as it drove past. By now the rain was pelting down. Lifting her T-shirt, Nellie checked the top package of doughnuts. Damp, but not soaked. If she managed to get out of this rain soon, she’d have more than mush for lunch.

Most of the office building’s first floor windows had been smashed. Draping a moldy tarp over a windowsill to cover the broken glass, Nellie heaved herself through the gap, then hauled in the tarp. In the dim light all she could see was dust, broken by rodent tracks and the odd vague footprint left by previous tenants come to spend a few nights like herself, but nothing appeared to be recent. Slowly she walked through empty rooms so thick with gloom, it was like moving through the inside of a headache. Climbing a staircase to the second floor, she settled in a bare room with a row of windows that overlooked the Skulls’ headquarters. Here she would be able to watch Deller come and go, and feel out her thoughts about him from a distance. Getting close to people complicated things and messed up her brain so she couldn’t think straight.

Gusts of wind came through a broken side window, but the ones facing the street were undamaged. Rain swilled the glass, clearing
away the dirt. Right here, thought Nellie, touching the sill. Here would make a good place to set the statue of Ivana that she’d found in the Sanctuary of the Blessed Goddess’s storage room.

The groan that took her then almost sent her to her knees. The statue was gone. Clear as anything she could remember placing it inside her knapsack yesterday morning before leaving the shack, then setting the knapsack on the bedroom dresser in her room last night. And she recalled, just as clearly, the sensation of slipping out of the house this morning without any knapsack on her back. In her rush to escape she’d forgotten the Goddess, pure and simple. Ivana would never forgive her for leaving Her holy image in a pagan house like that.

For it had been a very pagan house. Nowhere had Nellie seen a statue of the Goddess, not over a doorway or in a single window, and no altar had graced the living room or kitchen. And that talk about the Constellation of the Five Children—probably blasphemy, all of it. Made-up nonsense. Otherwise how was it possible she’d never studied the sarpas in her classes or heard the priests mention them? Her eyes were weird, that was all there was to it.

Fuming, Nellie paced the row of windows and stared down at the Skulls’ headquarters. What would Deller do when he found the statue in her knapsack? Desecrate it by drawing a beard on its face? Or something worse? She shook her head. People who lived in houses were just fooling themselves with their furniture and hot water and hamburgers and such. All of it was emptiness without the Goddess. Only She could turn a house into a home. Everything outside of Her love was illusion, and she—Nellie Joan Kinnan— had just about fallen prey to that illusion herself.

Illusion
. Nellie played the word over her tongue. It was a slippyslidey word, sounding just like what it meant. And it sure described the way her life had been since her mother’s death. Everything—the city around her, the people coming and going on its streets—had felt like pictures on a wall, a thin surface loneliness, until she’d learned to tune into the molecular field and see the Goddess’s love
at the core of things. That ability had come to her one night as she’d been sitting cold and alone in a deserted rusty old truck, thinking about dying and how it would reunite her with her mother. It had been one of her deepest darkest moments, but in the middle of it her mind had suddenly tilted to the right and the molecular field had appeared all around her, glowing like love. That was the moment she’d first felt the Goddess reach out to her, and began to understand who She truly was.
Rerarren. Sarpa
. Nellie clucked and shook her head. The only knower of secrets was Ivana, no one else.

Whispering an incantation to the Goddess, she let her mind tilt and watched the room’s molecular field ooze into focus. A quick scan showed her two gates snaking the east wall, several that hovered midair, and another that ran along the floor. Idly, she studied the closest midair gate. It looked as if it hadn’t been used in ages. Would it give off a flash of pain if she tried to open it? None of the gates in Deller’s house had shown any signs of pain. The one at the Sanctuary of the Blessed Goddess must have been a fluke. Or maybe ... Nellie’s heart quickened. Maybe it had been a lesson sent by the Goddess to teach her reverence for a holy place—a kind of “Keep Out” sign. After all, the Goddess must have loads of divine secrets in Her holy house, secrets She wouldn’t want just anyone stumbling across, certainly not that pagan Deller.

An eager grin took over Nellie’s face. This place wasn’t holy. No one would take a hissy-fit if she opened gates in this dump. Probing the midair gate, she felt it open without the slightest twinge of pain. Almost giddy with relief, she stepped through the gate and adjusted to the new level’s vibratory rate, grinning at her astonished double who was sitting in a corner cramming doughnuts into her mouth. “Don’t mind me,” she singsonged grandly, sending her mind into the molecular field and slowing it down, her grin growing as her dumbfounded double froze into position. It was such fun to play this trick and watch her doubles become speechless zombies. “Sweet dreams,” Nellie sang to her double, then returned the molecular
field to its normal vibratory rate, opened another of the midair gates and stepped through.

She was on a roll now, back in her element as she chose from the various gates in each level, repeating the prank time after time.
Man, are you dumb
, she thought, staring at the seventh double she’d frozen into position.
So dumb you deserve to be easy prey
. With a grin she reversed the slowdown process. Then before her dozed-out double could react, she reached into a box of pastries and smeared a mustache of whipping cream across the girl’s upper lip—just so the double would know this had all been real, not a dream, when she finally got her head back together.

“See?” Nellie gloated, staring directly into her double’s astonished eyes. “I am real. I am here. You’re just too dumb to know about it.”

Standing, she approached one of the midair gates, about to move on to another level, when a sudden thought hit her and she swivelled back to stare at her gaping double. At every level she’d entered in this office building, she’d found everything as she’d expected—one broken window on the far side, a thick layer of dust undisturbed except for her double’s footprints, and her double, caught in the throes of stuffing a soggy doughnut into her ravenous mouth. Traveling the levels was always like this—every level contained a double of herself and anyone who’d been in the immediate vicinity when she’d exited her home level.

So where had Fen’s doubles been last night? In the ten levels she’d passed through, the only doubles she’d encountered had been her own. Had the lab-coated men come back through the levels after they’d kidnaped Fen, hunting down his doubles, or had the doubles automatically vanished when he was taken through the last gate?

Swallowing, Nellie stared at the gate in front of her. How many levels had she passed through today? Was she close to the tenth? Hastily she headed back the way she’d come, sealing each gate behind her. At the last two levels she paused and snatched the top box of pastries from her double’s lap before moving on. Why should
she go hungry tomorrow if there was so much food around, begging to be eaten? So what if a few of her doubles went without supper? They were way too fat and needed to go on a diet anyway.

With a grim smile, Nellie stepped through to her home level and sealed the gate. She had five boxes of pastry, a dry place to sleep, and as far as she knew, no one currently on her tail. Things could be worse. Taking up a position by the window, she munched her way through a soggy cream doughnut, and waited for Deller to put on an appearance.

FROM HER POSITION BY
the window, Nellie watched Deller and his mother. The rain had let up an hour ago and the sun was out, riding a brilliant bank of clouds. Up and down the street puddles glittered and threw out light, and the air sang with a fresh clean scent, but the two figures standing in front of the Skulls’ headquarters were oblivious. Hunched in the entranceway, Deller stared at his feet while his mother gazed down the empty street, a magazine tucked under one arm and repeatedly calling Nellie’s name. Behind her the black skull leered in lopsided spray-painted fashion on the wall. Before entering the warehouse she’d given it a single disgusted glance, and had emerged with the magazine tucked under her arm. From the ramrod shape of her shoulders, Nellie had the feeling the woman had never before seen the warehouse or known of its existence. Deller would definitely be up for another little chat when they got home.

Dense and merciless, the sun beat down. Heaviness dragged at Nellie’s brain and her tongue was a pulpy mass in her mouth. It had been hours since she’d had anything to drink and her body was whimpering for water. Pressing her cheek against the windowframe, she sucked her phlegmy tongue and watched.

“Nellie, Nellie.” The calls came clearly through the broken window at the room’s far end, the sound slightly delayed so it didn’t quite match the movement of Deller’s mother’s mouth. Abruptly the woman left off calling and began arguing with her
son, waving the magazine in his face. Ducking to avoid a swat, Deller turned slightly and Nellie let out a gasp. There on his back she could clearly see her knapsack, the tip of the statue’s blue-robed head poking through a gap at the top. Greedily her eyes followed his every fidget and shuffle as he gave his mother monosyllabic replies. Here before her eyes was the sign she’d been waiting for, proof of the Goddess’s great love for Her lost and lonely daughter. How it must have pained Ivana to stoop to using a heathen such as Deller to deliver Her divine message. And how obvious that She was asking Nellie to rescue the statue, the sooner the better. Softly Nellie began to bump her head against the window frame, keeping time with her thoughts.
It’s mine, the Goddess gave it to me. You’ve got your own mother, it’s mine, it’s mine.
The sun pressed its great weight through the windowpane, the air spread its heated wings and beat against her lungs. She had to get the statue back, she had to.

With a final wave of the magazine, Deller’s mother turned and walked down the street. For a moment Deller stood watching her leave, then ducked into the Skulls’ headquarters. Rising to tiptoe Nellie peered out eagerly, whimpering as she tried to stare through the cardboard that covered the Skulls’ single window. Jitters claimed her arms and legs, and she forced herself to calm down, narrowing herself into the slits of her eyes. This could be her last chance to get the Goddess back. Soon the rest of the Skulls would converge on their headquarters, and who knew what would happen to the statue then? She had to get it back, she had to get it back
now
.