Pure (22 page)

The guard is broad and squat. Her skin is scorched, burned to a high pink sheen on her face, neck, and hands. Pressia wonders if it covers her whole body. She’s filled a hole in her cheek with an old coin. She walks beside Pressia and, for no reason Pressia can tell or prompting she can predict, the guard pops Pressia in the ribs with the butt of the rifle. When she doubles over, the guard says, “Pressia Belze,” hatefully, as if it’s a curse.

There are open doors along the hall, and inside each room there are cots, and kids waiting. It’s quiet, except for murmurs, cot springs, and boot scrapes.

Pressia can tell now that this place is ancient, the tiled floors, the molding, the old doors, high airy ceilings. They walk past a lobby of some sort that has a threadbare ornate rug and a bank of tall windows. The glass is long gone and the room now swirls with wind that gets caught up in the frail bits of gauzy curtains, gray with ash. It’s the kind of place people would come to wait for someone to be brought to them—a relative wheeled out, someone imbalanced, maybe insane. Asylums, sanatoriums, rehab centers—they had a lot of names. And then there were the prisons.

Out the windows, Pressia sees planks of wood nailed together like a lean-to, a stone wall topped with barbed wire, and farther still, white pillars that are attached to nothing at all. They’re just stalks.

The guard stops in front of a door and knocks.

A man’s voice, gruff and lazy, shouts, “Come in!”

The guard opens the door and gives Pressia one more shove with the butt of the rifle. “Pressia Belze,” she says, and because this is the only thing Pressia has heard her say, Pressia wonders if it’s the only thing she knows how to say.

There’s a desk and a man sitting behind it, or it’s actually two men. One is big and meaty. He seems much older than Pressia, but it’s hard to figure age what with scars and burns. The larger man seems old and young at the same time, but he may be only slightly older than Pressia, just wearier. The smaller man seems her age, but also weirdly ageless because of a certain vacancy in his gaze. The larger man is wearing a gray uniform, an officer of some sort, and he’s eating a tiny baked chicken from a tin. The head of the chicken is still on.

And the man on his back is small. He’s fused there. His skinny arms hang around the big man’s thick neck, broad back to skinny chest. Pressia remembers the driver of the truck and the head that had seemed to float behind his. Maybe these are the same two.

The big man says to the guard, “Take off the tape. She needs to talk.” The man’s fingers are greasy with chicken fat. His nails are dirty and shiny at the same time.

The guard pulls off the tape, hard. Pressia licks her lips and tastes blood.

“You can go,” the big man says to the guard.

She leaves, shutting the door with more gentleness than Pressia could expect of her. It clicks softly.

“So,” the big man says. “I’m El Capitan. This is headquarters. I run things.”

The small man on his back whispers, “I run things.”

El Capitan ignores him, picks at the dark meat, slips some into his fat mouth. Pressia realizes she’s starving. “Where did they find you?” El Capitan asks as he raises a smaller piece of meat over his shoulder, feeding the man on his back, straight into his mouth almost like a baby bird.

“I was out,” Pressia tells him.

He looks at her. “That it?”

She nods.

“Why didn’t you turn yourself in?” El Capitan asks. “You like a chase?”

“My grandfather’s sick.”

“Do you know how many people have the excuse that someone in the family is sick?”

“I’d guess a lot of people have sick families, if they have a family at all.”

He tilts his head, and she’s not sure how to read his expression. He goes back to his chicken. “The revolution is coming, so my question is this—can you kill?” El Capitan says this without much expression. It’s like he’s reading it off of a recruitment brochure. His heart’s not in it.

Truth is that there’s something about being hungry that makes Pressia want to kill people. It flashes up in her, this ugly desire. “I could learn how to kill.” She’s relieved that her wrists are still tied behind her back. He can’t see the doll-head fist.

“One day we’ll take them down.” His voice goes soft. “That’s all I want, really. I’d like to kill one Pure before I die. Just one.” He sighs, rubs his knuckles on the desk. “And your grandfather?” he asks.

“There’s nothing I can do for him now,” Pressia says. And it hits her that this is the truth and a strange relief. She feels immediately guilty. He has the meat tin and the strange red orange from the woman he stitched and one last row of handmade creatures that he can use for bartering.

“I understand family responsibilities,” El Capitan says. “Helmud”—he points to the man on his back—“my brother. I’d kill him, but he’s family.”

“I’d kill him, but he’s family,” Helmud says, folding his arms under his neck like an insect. El Capitan pulls loose a drumstick, holds it up for Helmud to nibble, but not too much, just a little; then he yanks it back. “But still,” he says, “you’re small, like you’ve never eaten a real meal. You wouldn’t make it. I’d say, going with my gut, that you should be of use, but only at your own expense.”

Pressia’s stomach knots up. She thinks of the cripple with the missing leg. Maybe there isn’t much difference between the two of them.

He leans forward, both of his elbows sliding across the desk. “It’s my job to make these kinds of calls. You think I like it?”

She’s not sure if he likes it or not.

Then he turns and shouts at Helmud, “Knock it off back there!”

Helmud looks up wide-eyed.

“He’s always fiddling. Nervous fingers. Fiddle, fiddle, fiddle. You’re gonna drive me insane one day, Helmud, with all the nervous crap. You hear me?”

“You hear me?” Helmud says.

El Capitan pulls a file off the stack. “Strange thing, though. It says in your file that you’ve been ordered up. To be an officer. They say we should keep your education intact, and I should roll you into training.”

“Really?” Pressia says. This immediately feels like a bad sign. Do they know her connection to the Pure? Why else would she be singled out? “Officer training?”

“Most people would sound a little happier,” El Capitan says, and he rubs his greasy lips then opens a box of cigars on his desk. “In fact, I’d say you’re shit lucky.” He lights a cigar and lets the smoke cloud around his head. “Lucky you!” he says.

His brother’s face is hidden now behind El Capitan’s head, but Pressia can still hear his voice. “Lucky you,” he whispers. “Lucky you.”

THEY’RE
BACK
IN BRADWELL’S
MEAT
LOCKER
. It smells like smoky meat. While Partridge changed into Bradwell’s clothes, Bradwell refried leftovers of a plump hybrid now sitting on the cook stove. He tells Partridge to eat. “We’ve got to have fuel.” But Partridge has no appetite. He feels like a stranger now that he’s wearing Bradwell’s clothes. The shirt’s too loose, the pants too short. The boots are so wide, his feet slide around. Partridge feels foreign to himself.

Partridge told Bradwell that he wasn’t chipped, but Bradwell’s sure there’s a bug on him somewhere and has told him that he’ll have to burn all of his clothes and his mother’s belongings, which he’s not sure he’ll be able to do.

On the floor, Bradwell has set down every paper he thinks will help him find the bigger picture—printed emails from his parents, some original Japanese documentation, handwritten notes, a chunk of his parents’ manuscript, and now, to add to it all, Partridge’s mother’s things. It’s strange to see everything laid out, like pieces taken from lots of different puzzles. How could they ever fit together to create a whole? It’s not possible. But Bradwell seems almost electrified by the possibilities. He’s huffed down his food and now paces around the evidence. Even the wings in his back are unable to be still.

Partridge fixes his attention on the clippings of his father—a few shots of him at the mike, sometimes dipping forward with one hand pressed to his tie, a false humility that Partridge despises. His father is in the background of lots of other news-story photos, hanging at the edges. Partridge says, “I don’t even recognize him, really. I mean, what was he really like?”

“Your father?” Bradwell says. “A man of short sentences, positive catchphrases, and lots of promises. A master of vague, among other things.”

Partridge picks up one of the dusty clippings. He stares at his father’s pale face, his reedy lips, his eyes always looking away from the camera. “He’s a liar. He knows more than he’s willing to say.”

“I bet he knew everything,” Bradwell says.

“What’s everything?

“All the way back to World War Two.”

“World War Two?”

“My parents studied it,” Bradwell says. “Otten Bradwell and Silva Bernt. They were tagged at a young age like your dad was, young recruits for the Best and the Brightest. They were plucked out of their respective high schools a couple of states away from each other on random afternoons their senior year and taken out to lunch at Red Lobsters.”

“Red Lobsters?”

“A restaurant chain, probably part of the protocol. Someone had done that level of research and had found the perfect restaurant to lure young recruits from modest backgrounds. Your dad probably was taken to a Red Lobster too when he was in high school.”

Partridge can’t imagine his father ever having been Partridge’s age now. Impossible. He was always old. He was born old.

“But unlike your father, my parents turned it down. They used to joke that the Red Lobster didn’t work on either of them. They were Red-Lobster-
immune.
”

Partridge doesn’t like the way Bradwell’s take makes his father sound weak. He doesn’t like the sound of his father’s name coming from Bradwell’s mouth. “Where did you find all of this stuff?” Partridge asks.

“My parents knew what was coming. They had a hidden safe room with double-enforced steel-lined walls. After my aunt and uncle died, I went back to the house, all burned up. Without thinking too hard, I knew the four-digit combination—eight-one-oh-five, the number of the house they’d first lived in, where I was born, in fact, in Philly. It wasn’t easy, but I hauled the footlocker with me and finally to this place.”

“My mother’s stuff might be nothing,” Partridge says. “But the first time I held her things in my hands, they felt important—proof, like they could lead me to her. Maybe it’s stupid.”

Bradwell touches the small pristine metal music box, brushes one finger over the birthday card, lightly, its design of balloons on the cover, as if the things are holy. Partridge would never tell him that’s what it looks like, though. He knows that Bradwell would hate the idea that anyone would treat anything from the Dome reverently.

“I haven’t seen anything like this since the Detonations, not charred or singed, not partially obliterated or ashen. They had to have been inside the Dome before the Detonations.” He touches the gold pendant, the swan with its blue eye, and the smooth edges of the birthday card. “Jesus!” he says, hit by a sudden flare of anger. “What’s it like to walk around perfect, huh, Partridge? No scars, no burns, no birds. To be a clean slate?”

The question makes Partridge angry. “Just because I live in a Dome doesn’t mean I’ve never suffered. I mean, it’s not like
your
suffering. What could compare to this, huh? Do you want an award for it? A medal that says First Place Suffering? You win, Bradwell. Okay? You win.”

“This isn’t about us.”

“Then stop making it about us.”

“We have to clear our heads of the most obvious and blinding assumptions. We don’t want to see what’s being represented. We want to see what’s really here—and the shadows that live behind it. The Shadow History.”

“Right,” Partridge says, even though he’s still angry and doesn’t know how he could possibly clear his head.

“How old were you when the Detonations hit?”

“Eight and a half.”

“This is for your ninth birthday.”

“I know. My father never gave it to me.”

“She knew she wasn’t going to be with you for it, either dead…”

“Or still out here.”

“Why did she only do one birthday? Why not all of them?”

“Maybe it’s proof she’s alive. She thought she’d be reunited with me for my tenth.”

“Or maybe that’s the only one your father kept.” Bradwell went on, “If your mother’s things were in the Dome before the Detonations, does that mean you packed up before the Detonations and moved in?”

“We were allowed a few personal items—not because we knew the Detonations were coming, just in case of something, anything, really.”

“How soon before the Detonations?”

“We were taking a tour when the Detonations hit. We walked around what would be our little apartment. I put my small box of things—stupid stuff, a video game, a stuffed animal I won from a machine and thought was lucky—under the bunk beds.”

“Well, when you all brought in your small box of things, your mother must have known then that there was a chance she wasn’t going to be with you.”

“I guess so.”

“Willux could have stolen some things before he left his wife behind. On purpose. If so, that means the objects are valuable. Did he plant this stuff because he knew it was important, just not why? Did he want you to find it, hoping it would stir something in you?” Bradwell winds the music box and opens it. “What about this tune?”

“What about it?”

“Does it stir something?”

“Like I said, it’s a kid song that I think she made up. It’s nothing.”

Bradwell lifts the necklace by its gold-link chain and watches the swan twist, its wings spread wide.

Partridge can feel Bradwell’s energy. “Do you have any ideas?” Partridge asks. “A plan?”

Aboveground it’s gotten windy, and there’s the rattle of debris being kicked around. Bradwell glances overhead, then at the necklace wound around his fingers. “You know what would help?” Bradwell says. “Info about your mother.”

“I doubt I can answer any questions about her. I barely knew her.”