Life on the Preservation, US Edition (11 page)

“Icky, I’m sorry. I don’t want to be mean. But I could have used you around when they had me in that hospital. I felt like I didn’t have anybody in the world. Dad visited but I could tell he was forcing himself. It was hard for him to accept that I was even in there.”

“I’m a jerk.”

“No, you aren’t. You’re a sweet man who went through something dreadful before you were mature enough to deal with it. At least I was an adult when Mom... died. And besides, I’m the jerk for complaining about you not visiting. You were just a kid. Dad probably wouldn’t let you.”

“He would have let me, I think. I was afraid to come. Maybe I should go back under my rock.”

“You better not.” Vanessa tossed down the last of her Martini and stood up, pulling her coat around her. “Come along, let’s go have a look inside that head of yours, shall we?”

“We don’t have to do this,” Ian said.

“Poor Icky. Don’t be afraid.”

“I’m not afraid.”

“Yes you are. But never mind.”

Outside, Vanessa fished her car keys out and jingled them. “You follow me. I doubt you remember where I live.”

“Can’t we go to your office, Ness?”

“Of course. But you haven’t been to my place in a long time. Afterwards I could make some dinner. And I have something I’ve been holding onto for when you turned up again.”

“I think we better stay in the city.”

“But– oh, yes. I forgot. If we leave the city we’ll get stuck or disappear or something until tomorrow. I mean until the day starts again. Right?”

He nodded, embarrassed. It sounded ridiculous the way she stated it. It sounded ridiculous what
ever
way it was stated.

“Let’s forget the whole thing,” he said.

“No. You’ve got me curious.”

Vanessa’s office wasn’t much bigger than a walk-in closet. A print of Van Gogh’s
Starry Night
failed to transcend its mass-produced-image status. On another wall there hung a framed license or certificate. Ian slumped in the tan loveseat, far from relaxed. He tried to ignore the disagreeable scent of drugstore potpourri. Vanessa dialed down the lights then pulled her chair close and sat facing him. Music from the Lava Lounge next door thumped through the wall.

“Have you ever been hypnotized?” she asked.

“Nope.”

“Not everybody
can
be,” she said. “But we’ll see. Are you ready?”

“I guess so. I don’t like losing control.”

“You don’t have to lose control, Icky. Take a few deep breaths, hold them here in your diaphragm.”

She placed her hand flat on her own diaphragm to demonstrate.

“Good. Release slowly, and breathe again. As you’re breathing I want you to imagine yourself in a safe place, a safe and peaceful place. It doesn’t have to be a real place. It could be a garden of your imagination, or a quiet room. But in your mind fill the space with peace and light. And keep breathing and concentrating on your safe place, Ian. Make it as real as you can. Now begin to relax your body, start with your toes and work your way up until you are completely, blissfully, relaxed...”

Vanessa’s voice soothed him past his initial resistance. Concentrating on it, he was able to shut out the Lava Lounge. After a while even her voice seemed to fade. He thought
: is this what it’s like?
He felt that if he wanted to he could stand up at any time and it would be over, the spell broken. But he didn’t want to; he wanted to stay in the room he’d made, the peaceful place of rose colored walls, rounded smooth, no sharp corners, a fire in the deep hearth, and round hobbit windows looking out on blue sky. Was he describing this to Ness? Now he didn’t seem to be hearing any words at all. He was in the rose colored room gazing at a fire, watching the flames, listening to their soft crackle as they consumed a log. There was a door behind him. He couldn’t see it yet, but he knew it was there. In a moment he would stand up and turn around and open it. The moment arrived. He stood, turned, and approached the door. Above the lintel was a gold plate engraved with the word: TOMORROW. Ian opened the door. White emptiness lay beyond. Suddenly his peaceful feeling evaporated. Light dimmed and the room became cold. The crackle of the fire ceased. Ian was afraid to turn around. The great white emptiness yawned before him on the other side of the TOMORROW door. He could neither go forward nor turn back. Then the world began to dissolve around him.

I
AN FOUND HIMSELF
walking down the hallway outside his apartment, his mind blank. Seconds passed. He didn’t feel fully connected. It was like riding inside an automaton, watching as it withdrew a ring of keys from its pocket and slotted one into the apartment door. When it turned the key over, Ian entered fully into himself and felt the key between his thumb and finger. He crossed the threshold then fell back against the door, panting, slamming the door shut behind him. He had no memory of anything happening after his safe place dissolved. “Jesus Christ,” he said, almost sobbing.

The apartment was dark. He fumbled for the wall switch, and the furnishings leapt out of the dark, dead things briefly animated by sudden illumination. Ian touched his forehead, which was damp with cold sweat. He got his cell phone out and searched for Vanessa’s number, found it and called her. She picked up after a couple of rings.

“Hello?”

“It’s me.”

“Icky, are you all right?”

“I don’t know.”

“I was worried when you left.”

“Ness, I don’t remember
anything
, except you hypnotized me. What happened?”

“That’s very strange,” she said. “We talked for quite a while after I brought you out of the trance. You seemed distracted, but you
must
remember. Hold on a minute, I have to switch lanes.”

“You’re driving?”

“Yes, just hitting the Aurora Bridge.”

Ian could hear the car, Vanessa’s radio turned to a jazz station, KPLU probably. A low surge of static occurred on the phone connection, so brief he almost didn’t notice it. Ian flashed on the time he and Zach crossed the bridge in the VW, panic-accelerating to get away from the city, how right before they reached the far side the car had begun to shudder. The end of the bridge must be at the outer boundary of the bubble. And Vanessa had just crossed it.

“Okay, Icky, go ahead.”

Ian turned the phone off. It wasn’t her anymore.

DRIFTER

B
ENEATH THE CITY
the Curator reverted to his deep space soma and oozed through a complex network of tunnels. Bioelectrical impulses shimmered over his body. He projected outward to the Cloud, but encountered only void. He tried again, increasing his intention, straining.

And failed.

The Preservation appeared to function as others had. His Lensing ability was intact. He could effect whatever changes in the city he desired, he could manufacture Shadow camouflage in which to hide from the Hunters. But he was no longer himself, a light in the Cloudmind. He felt more akin to Charles Noble than he did to either his old star-dwelling soma or the Cloud.

The Curator expelled himself into Elliott Bay to drift in the salty cold water and contemplate the situation. Jellyfish floated around like immature versions of himself.

He regarded them. Natural evolution suggested greater complexity, not simplification toward a rudimentary state. Had he naturally evolved into this expression, this perfect body for extended life in deep space, prior to his final transphysical evolution and joining with the Cloud? Or had he been made this way deliberately?

What was he before?

It had never occurred to him to ask such a question of himself. Perhaps because he had never before been so abandoned.

But having asked it, he must answer it: No. The Cloud had discovered his race, recognized the evolutionary potential, and so began the long... adjustments. Just as the Cloud had begun the long adjustments on the human race.

Before the Hunters intervened.

CHAPTER TEN

OAKDALE, WA., 2013

T
HEY CAME IN
the night while Billy was sleeping in the basement.

Kylie sat upstairs with her mother. The house dated from the 1950s. In a time before Kylie’s memories jelled, her father had put a lot of effort into eradicating the 50s feel. He had torn out the funky stone fireplace, for instance, and replaced it with marble facing and a heat-efficient glass front. He took down all the old light fixtures and installed modern, if cheap, replacements from Home Depot. All that was before the marriage disintegrated. It wasn’t so easy to renovate a wife, Kylie supposed. Maggie kept the house spotless, even now. Every week she laboriously vacuumed the wall-to-wall carpeting, using a non-electric carpet sweeper. She was getting sicker, though; she wouldn’t be able to keep that up.

Maggie was showing Kylie the album of old photographs. The room pulsed with the light of homemade candles.

“See,” Maggie said, tapping a picture with her finger. “Your grandparents.”

“Uh huh.”

Kylie had seen the pictures many times. This one showed a sixty-something couple standing in front of a yellow frame house. The man was wearing a bulky white sweater, the woman’s sweater was red cable knit. They looked happy. There was a pattern of sunlight and shade on the side of the house. Flame colored leaves lay scattered over the lawn.

“That’s their house,” Maggie said. Maggie was only forty-five but looked old, her hair gray and stringy, pouches under her eyes and the eyes seeping with the telltale discharge; she was sick and getting sicker. The people in the picture looked younger, more alive.

“I know,” Kylie said.

“In Seattle,” Maggie said.

“I–”

Maggie closed the album. Kylie had told her mother what Billy said.

“I pray to God what he told you isn’t true,” Maggie said. “The thought of your grandparents being kept like zoo animals, it’s sickening.”

“It might not be real people under the Dome,” Kylie said.

“Well, pray they’re not.”

“Mom, have you ever seen the Dome?”

“No.”

“Do you ever think about... leaving Oakdale?”

“Leaving? I guess I’d have to be out of my mind to do something like that.”

“Don’t you ever wonder what it’s like?”

“I already know what it’s like. It’s like nothing good. It’s death and more death, and chaos.”

“But that doesn’t–”

Maggie touched her knee and said: “We’re as safe as we can be, right here in Oakdale. There’s
structure
here, and a leader.”

“Father Jim? He tried to kill Billy and wants to
cut
me.”

Maggie looked down, her hand still on Kylie’s knee. After a moment she looked up again, and there was flinty determination in her eyes. Kylie had seen that look before, right after The Judgment, when even Oakdale was full of death and chaos instead of just death.
We’re going to live,
Maggie had said.
You
believe
that, baby.

Now Maggie took her daughter’s hand and squeezed it hard. “Things aren’t always easy, honey. You know that. It wasn’t easy when your father left us. It wasn’t easy after The Judgment. But we overcame what we had to overcome. You always trusted me to make the right choices, didn’t you?”

Confused, Kylie nodded, “Yeah, I guess so. But what–”

“Shush now, baby. Something unpleasant is going to happen, but it’s necessary.”

“What? What’s going to happen?”

“Everybody knows about you, Kylie. They know you’re different. Do you understand how dangerous that is? There are people in this town who would kill you for it.”

“I won’t let them.”

“Honey, if enough of them try, you won’t be able to stop them and neither will I or even your Billy. They will come for you because they’re superstitious and they believe in the Judgment and they believe in Father Jim.”

“They won’t get me if I go away with Billy, like he said.”

“Put that idea out of your mind.”

“But–”

“Put it out. You couldn’t survive.”

“Then what am I supposed to
do?
”

“There is something we can do. Father Jim is right. He might be right for the wrong reasons, but he’s right. What everyone has to have is a ritual, like the Church used to provide. A sacrament. The wafer, the wine, the confessional, absolution to take away your sins.”

“I haven’t sinned,” Kylie said.

“Rituals to put in order what’s out of order.”

“You want to let him
cut
me?”

“All I want is for you to live.”

The door to one of the bedrooms opened and someone walked down the hall, stepping heavily. Kylie thought it must be Billy, except that didn’t make sense, since Billy was in the basement and never came upstairs. When Father Jim appeared, Kylie jumped up. Her mother, still holding onto her, stood also.

“There’s my little co-pilot,” Father Jim said.

“Some more time,” Maggie said.

Father Jim was carrying a small black bag, like a doctor’s bag. His right eye was clouded red. It looked like the eye of a bear. His big shoulders sagged. He said, “My lambs are lost,” which made no obvious sense to Kylie.

“Mommy,” she said.

“I’m sorry, honey, it has to be.”

Kylie twisted and pulled on her hand to get free, but Maggie’s bony grip was like steel.

“Show her the children,” Father Jim said. “They’re outside now.”

“Billy!”

“The children are gathered in the street,” Father Jim said. “Show her, Maggie.”

“I… I’ve changed my mind,” Maggie said.

“It’s too late for that,” Father Jim said.

Kylie wrenched loose and ran to the big window and pushed the curtain aside. A silent mob filled the street in front of the house, a number of its members holding burning torches. It was the entire remaining population of Oakdale, under a hundred people. At the sight of Kylie they surged forward.

Father Jim lurched to the front door and threw it open. He stood before them on the porch. They stopped. He removed his hat.

“Hear me! The Lord hath given me a third eye through which to receive his visions. I require two children to help me complete the ritual of purification.” He pointed. “You and you.”