Fuse (Pure Trilogy 2) (32 page)

“Good ole Buck!” Pressia says quietly, remembering that’s exactly what Willux wrote on one of his notebook pages.

“And how does that relate to us?” El Capitan asks.

Hastings tells him that under Willux’s watch, the small molecules had been grown large and combined with other molecules to make the thin, strong, rigid skin of the airship’s vacuum tanks. “To rise up, it simply pumps air out. To descend, it lets some back in, weighing down the airship.”

“Wow,” Bradwell says, clearly impressed.

Pressia stares out over the Deadlands. “They were so smart, and look at what they did with all that intelligence.”

Hastings gives El Capitan his limited understanding of instrumentation
and navigation. And Bradwell asks Fignan for a map of the area. The map is an old one of highways, churches, office complexes. Fignan gives facts about the geological makeup, weather patterns in this region, the population per square mile—all of it pre-Detonations.

Out the window, there’s the barren landscape. That world is long gone. Pressia’s tired of his pre-Detonations facts. They seem only to illustrate all that’s been lost.

Bradwell interrogates Fignan about Cygnus—the constellation, various swan species classified under the term, mythology. Fignan’s voice drones on, soft and low.

They pass old fast-food-chain signs on tall poles, now fallen, one after the next, like trees felled in a storm. Some of the signs shattered. Others cracked like eggs. Whatever was within them—tubes of light? electrical wires?—has been destroyed or stolen. The wind has pushed the dust into drifts that seem to be eating the rubble of hotels, restaurants, and discount outlets. Still, Pressia sees small signs of human life—an occasional house made of a roof blasted loose from a gas station, primitive lean-tos on the wind-protected side of a partially demolished Hardee’s.

And as Pressia keeps her eyes on the passing landscape, Fignan is retelling a Greek myth about two close friends, Cygnus and Phaeton, who were always in competition. They challenged each other to a chariot race across the sky. But they both flew too close to the sun. Their chariots burned and they fell to earth, unconscious. When Cygnus woke up, he searched for Phaeton and found his body trapped by the roots of a tree at the bottom of a river. Bradwell touches her arm. “Did you hear that?”

She knows what he’s thinking—Novikov and Willux, the accidental drowning that might not have been an accident at all. She nods.

Fignan goes on. “Cygnus dived into the water to retrieve Phaeton’s body for a proper burial. Without it, his spirit wouldn’t be able to travel to the afterlife. But Cygnus couldn’t reach him. He sat on the bank and cried, pleading with Zeus to help him. Zeus answered, saying that he could give Cygnus the body of a swan, allowing him to dive deeply enough to pull Phaeton from the river. But if Cygnus chose the body of
a swan, he would no longer be immortal. He would live only as long as a swan lives. Cygnus became a swan, dived into the water, pulled up Phaeton’s body, and gave him a proper burial so Phaeton’s spirit could make it into the afterlife. Zeus was so moved by this selflessness, he created a constellation in the image of Cygnus—a swan—in the night sky.”

“Willux would have been Cygnus. Novikov was Phaeton.” Pressia turns to Bradwell. “Do you think Willux was really trying to save him?”

“The myth is weirdly prophetic,” Bradwell says. “If Novikov had the formula, if he was really already experimenting with reversal—successfully—on his own body, and if Willux killed him, then he did become mortal. He sealed his fate. Like Walrond said . . .”

“He killed the one person who could have saved him
,” Pressia says. “Even if he didn’t fully understand this myth, he must have heard it. I mean, he chose the swan as a symbol for the Seven. He had to have researched what the swan means—it’s not crazy to imagine that he came across this stuff.”

“I think Walrond was right about Willux’s obsessive mind, the importance of Cygnus—the constellation—the tip of its wing passing over Newgrange,” Bradwell says. “I wasn’t sure before, but, I don’t know—I feel like I’m starting to see the patterns of Willux’s mind.”

Pressia looks out at the remains of large factories hulking to the west. Corrugated roofs peeled loose, the factories look both airy and gutted. “I wonder who survives out here.”

“I don’t know, but they must be tough.”

“No more road,” El Capitan says.

The road crumbles away. The Dusts are rippling on the horizon. Pressia tightens her grip on her gun, holds it to her chest.

In the distance, there’s a large, skeletal, serpentine structure—a tall neck that ends abruptly, a backbone that dips toward the earth, and then a loop, like the old-fashioned letters her grandfather taught her, cursive. “What’s that?”

“It’s an amusement park,” Hastings says. “We’ll have to pass it to the east.”

Bradwell leans forward over the front seat. “Jesus. I know that place.
I went there as a kid. It was brand new, but really retro. You know how the Return to Civility loved anything that felt old-world. It was called Crazy John-Johns. There was a clown—a huge clown with a bobbing head—a Tilt-A-Whirl, and old-style roller coasters. Not just the simulators in theaters, but the real thing. Real wind in your hair, filling up your lungs. My father took me there. We rode Rolling Thunder and the Avalanche.”

“Crazy John-Johns,” El Capitan says. “I remember advertisements. My mother never could scrape together enough money.”

“Mother,” Helmud says, tucking away his knife.

Pressia thinks of her grandfather, Odwald Belze, who told her, again and again, about a trip to Disney World that she took during the Before—a story he invented to give her a life, one he knew nothing about.

“It’s inhabited,” Hastings says. “The roller coaster is a lookout tower. Can you see them?”

“Who?” Pressia asks, but then, at the top of the roller coaster, she sees a few small figures sitting on the vertical tracks, probably having scaled them like a ladder.

“The last time I was here,” Hastings continues, “they proved to be dangerous. They have a power source and gunpowder left over from fireworks displays and—”

The sedan suddenly jerks sideways and spins a tight circle. The back tires churn dust. The car jerks to a stop.

“And traps,” Hastings says.

“What the hell?” El Capitan shouts. He pulls the rifle strap over his and Helmud’s head, reaches for the handle.

“Don’t go out,” Hastings warns.

“Go out,” Helmud whispers.

“I’ve got to see the damage.” El Capitan opens the door and steps out. He crouches by the front tire then rises and rubs the frame. “Damn it!” he shouts. “Why would someone do this to my baby?”

“My baby!” Helmud shouts.

“What’s wrong?” Bradwell calls.

The Dusts are not far off. The air is still.

“Someone dug some kind of something right into the ground,” El Capitan says. “A pink hole with teeth! Some giant freakish mouth!”

Pressia slides across the backseat. “This I have to see.”

“Me too,” Bradwell says.

“Be careful and quick,” Hastings warns as the two of them get out of the car.

The punctured tire sits in what is, in fact, a perfectly round large pink hole, maybe made of fiberglass. Inside it, there’s a set of large, sharp spikes, a few of which are dug deeply into the dead tire. A tarp, now loose, flutters from it like a wild veil. “Smart,” Pressia says. “They covered it with a tarp, let the sand and ash cover it, and waited.”

Hastings steps out of the car. He stands a few feet from them, his eyes scanning the horizon.

El Capitan kicks the ground, cursing loudly.

Bradwell knocks on the heavy-duty fiberglass with his knuckles. “It’s a teacup,” Bradwell says. “From a teacup ride.”

“A teacup ride?” El Capitan says. “My car was taken down by a teacup from a Crazy John-Johns teacup ride?”

Pressia thinks of her grandfather’s stories of his childhood—the Italian festivals, the goldfish in plastic bags given as prizes, the cannoli, the games and rides. She looks across the terrain between them and the amusement park’s chain-link fence. The Dusts are huddling nearby. “Do you think there are more traps?”

“Yes,” Hastings says. “Get back in.” He locks his vision on the amusement park now. “On this route, we lost three Special Forces soldiers—heavily armed and combat-ready.”

“Three of them? Dead?” El Capitan says, stunned.

“What’s the plan?” Bradwell says.

“The plan was not letting my car get eaten by a teacup,” El Capitan says.

“How many more miles, Hastings? Can you tell us that much?” Pressia asks.

“Thirty-five point seven two miles.”

“We won’t make it all in one day now,” El Capitan says. “We’ll have
to try to get around this and find a place to sleep for the night on the other side.”

“If
we make it to the other side,” Bradwell says.

“If there is an
other
side,” Pressia says.

“If,” Helmud says.

“Do you hear it?” Hastings says.

“What?” El Capitan asks. His anger has shifted to fear.

But there’s no need for an answer. They all feel it, up through the soles of their boots—the earth rumbling under their feet.

P
ARTRIDGE WAKES UP
to the face of Hollenback’s five-year-old daughter—Julby Hollenback. This was the room he used to wake up in during the winter holidays he spent with the Hollenbacks. He can hear Mrs. Hollenback singing in the kitchen; she always did love songs about snowmen and sleigh rides. Julby’s older now. Her two bottom front teeth are missing.

He came here last night just after leaving Glassings. He walked up to Hollenback’s apartment and saw the small knocker in the shape of a lion’s face, the academy’s mascot, draped in curlicue ribbon—something Mrs. Hollenback teaches the girls to make in the History of Domesticity as an Art Form. Below the ribbon were two snowflakes—paper ones, like those taped to the school’s plate-glass windows. It’s as if Lyda were here with him all the time. And for a moment he imagined the family asleep, cocooned in their sheets. He didn’t want to wake them up.

But he raised the knocker and tapped it hard.

After a few minutes he heard shuffling and Hollenback’s voice saying, “Who is it? Who’s there? What on earth?” And then the clicking of the lock. Hollenback flung the door wide.

And there he was, agitated, fine hairs floating on top of his nearly bald head, cinching the belt ofhis robe. His shoulders seemed frailer, or
maybe it was just that he wasn’t wearing his sport coat. He was expecting a prank or an overblown emergency.

He stared at Partridge. One moment Hollenback thought he knew what the world would bring, and in the next moment, it all changed. Partridge could see the shock in his eyes, and he liked that Hollenback seemed kicked off balance. In that moment, he hated Hollenback for knowing the truth, for swallowing it every day, passing down the lie.

You awake now, Hollenback?
Partridge wanted to say.
This is how life is. This is how it goes
.

Hollenback shuttled him inside. “Partridge Willux,” he kept saying to himself, “how about it?”—and then made a call from the house phone. When he came back, he looked pale. He said, “Stay the night. Everything is okay. Someone will come for you in the morning.”

And now Julby is in Partridge’s face. “You can’t sleep all day.”

“How are you doing, Julby? You seem all grown up.”

She’s wearing a sweater with a Christmas tree design. “I’m in kindergarten, group three, with Mrs. Verk. My mother told me to tell you that we’re going to eat.”

“Eat?”

“It’s our Saturday meal,” she says proudly. Partridge remembers that the Hollenbacks eat at noon on Saturdays: a sit-down meal, spare food, but real—not soytex pills or chalky power drinks. Real food. It’s a perk of the senior faculty. “You’re invited.”

“Are you sure?” He knows that there’s only so much to go around.

“Uh-huh. And some other person is eating with us.”

“Who?” It couldn’t be his father—not Glassings either.

“A girl!” Lyda. This is his first thought, but it’s quickly replaced by a more logical assumption. Iralene. “She has shiny hair and she’s already here. And she smells like bubbles.”

“That sounds like Iralene.”

Julby shrugs and picks at the balls that decorate the Christmas tree on her sweater. “She’s here to take you home.”

“I don’t have a home.”

Julby looks at him and laughs. “You’re funny.”

“I wasn’t trying to be.”

Her face becomes solemn. “Jarv doesn’t have a home anymore.”

Mrs. Hollenback was always making excuses for Jarv.
He’s just small now because he spits up a lot. Delicate digestive system. He’ll outgrow it!
Children who don’t develop well are often taken away for treatment. Had Jarv been flagged? “How’s Jarv these days?” Partridge says as he sits up and gets out of the bed. He is still dressed in his suit pants and shirt, rumpled now.

He finds his necktie on the back of a chair. Julby taps on the window like there might be something on the other side. “Jarv is stupid,” Julby says.

“Jarv isn’t stupid. He’s just little still, that’s all. Is he eating better?”

“How do I know? He’s gone to get unstupid.”

Jarv is gone. He thinks about Mr. Hollenback again—the way he seemed older to him, shrunken. Maybe the loss of Jarv aged him. Partridge doesn’t want to tell Julby that he’s sorry, because that might make her think there’s something to be sorry about. There is, of course. Sometimes these kids don’t ever come back. “But he’ll be home soon.”

“Maybe,” Julby says. “He was just gone one day, so maybe that’s how he’ll come back. A surprise.” She looks at the open door then picks at the balls on her sweater again. “I think you should stay for Christmas. We like it when you’re here.” Julby runs out of the room and down the hall shouting, “He’s awake! He’s awake! He’s awake!”

Partridge walks out of the bedroom and dips quickly into the bathroom. As he’s washing his hands, he takes the cap off his pinky. The skin looks more layered, firmer. He worries that the pinky growing back is a sign that he’s turning back into his old self. His father wants the pinky fully formed, wants the past erased, wants him cleansed. When will he see the old man? Partridge splashes water on his face, stares at himself in the mirror.
I’m still me
, he says.
I’m still me
.