The Harvest (16 page)

As the sun rises more people file in to watch or participate, and soon I estimate there's no fewer than two hundred people sitting or standing in our little valley, clustered tightly together, bound by silence. Some bystanders observe from a distance, painted bodies stand up to throw seeds into the fire and the water, and the sky morphs from red to orange to clear blue.

The woman with the phoenix stands, selects her seeds, and tosses them into the flames. “Rachel Sayyid.” I gape.
That's Jeremiah's mother's name!
Vale, too, is staring slack-jawed at the woman and nearly misses a drumbeat. I turn to Soren, his eyes wide. “Hana Lyon. This is for their deaths.” She turns and walks to the creek empty-handed, staring at the rushing waters for several seconds. No one moves. “There will be no resurrection for them.” I can hear the anguish in her voice, the bitterness, sour like rotten fruit. “The resurrection will be ours.” She raises her hands into the air, clenched into fists, and now I notice the clear red letter painted on the back of both her hands: R.

“The resurrection will be ours,” someone says nearby, echoing her words.

“The resurrection will be ours,” comes another echo. I look for the sound of the voice. It's the man with the skull and claws, the familiar-looking one, who said the names of everyone who died in the massacre.

“The resurrection will be ours,” Soren and Osprey say in sync, looking wide-eyed at the crowd as the chant goes around, not loud but forceful, with the same rhythm and cadence as the beat Vale was tapping out just moments ago.

The resurrection will be ours.

And then it's over.

Vale stays next to the drum as the vigil keepers begin murmuring amongst themselves, some taking their leave, some gathering into small groups. I stand as Meera comes up to me and kisses my cheek.

“That was beautiful, Remy,” she says. “The Sector may say you're the face of the Resistance, but today you proved you're really the face of the Resurrection.”

Meera reaches for my hand as another vigil keeper approaches: the girl with the phoenix. She stops and looks at me with a terrifying ferocity, the red plumage painted around her eyes making her all the more frightening. She glances over at Soren and Osprey and then back to me.

“My name is Saara. I know who you are, Remy Alexander. I want to fight with you.”

“Who are you?” I demand, awestruck by her paint and by her presence.

“I'm Hana Lyon's sister.”

Soren turns at the mention of Hana's name. He leaves Osprey's side and walks over to us.

“You threw seeds for my sister,” Saara says, watching him. “How did you know her?”

“I loved her,” Soren says. “Young love, but love nonetheless.”

Meera and I take Saara's hands.

“Welcome to the Resistance,” I murmur.

13 - VALE

Spring 79,
Sector Annum
106, 11h00

Gregorian Calendar:
June 6

I watch from afar as the girl with the phoenix paint walks up to Remy and Meera. Still awed by the vigil's power, I try to keep my feet on the ground and process what I just witnessed. Instead of joining Remy, I focus on cleaning up, gathering the remaining seeds, and packing up the few things we brought.

When I turn back around, Meera's gone, but Remy and Soren are still talking to the girl. I opt to stay out of the conversation, choosing instead to sit by the stream and wait. After about ten minutes, I feel a hand on my shoulder, fingers pressing into my tired muscles.

“Meera's going back to Bunqu's to clean up,” Remy says as I stand. “She has to go into work. Said a few people called in sick, that there must be some kind of bug going around. She'll meet us later.”

“Who is that girl?” I ask.

“Her name is Saara Lyon.” Her eyes light up with excitement. “Hana Lyon's sister. She wants to join the Resistance. Today. She says she has a bag packed and everything.” I realize what this must mean to Remy, to know there is someone else out there who knows what she's been through, who can understand and empathize completely.

“How did she know Rachel?”

“She's a nurse. She took care of Miah's mom when she was turned into a lab rat during the blight that went around when we were at the Academy. She did her research and realized it was all connected.”
To my parents
, I think, my head swimming. “She's been waiting for a chance to get in touch with someone from the Resistance for months.”

“Remy,” I say, pressure building in my chest, constricting my throat. The feeling of being underwater, tumbling under waves, grows with every passing second. “What you did today was amazing.”

I can't take my eyes off her. As she turns to me, her presence is like gravity, pulling me to her as effortlessly as the earth keeps my feet on the ground.

“I couldn't have done it by myself.” She leans in to me. “What would we have done without your drumming?”

She turns to leave, but I stay where I am, my feet rooted to that spot. I take her hands in mine. Her eyes are as rich as the earth.

“Remy, the vigil was inspiring. But I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about you.” Something changed today, watching her lead the ceremony. I've been chasing her for almost four years now, this girl, but today she became more than just a girl. “You are my compass, my guide. I'm in love with you.”

She stares at me for a long time before responding, but the silence between us is as peaceful as a clear lake at dawn.

“I know,” she whispers. “I'm in love with you, too.”

We're alone, just the two of us, and so I pull her to me and kiss her, and she wraps her arms around my waist. For a few moments that feel as eternal as a few millennia, we stand like that and watch the sun, reminiscent of Saara Lyon's phoenix, rise to its full, fiery brightness.

Finally we pull away.

“Saara's going to get her bag. Soren and Osprey are waiting here for her, and they'll meet us back at Bunqu's.” Remy looks me in the eye. “We'll have time to wash off this body paint. Together.”

After an hour of walking, we key into Bunqu's gate and make our way around to the hidden side door. Something raises the hackles on the back of my neck. The air is too still. I set the drums down and hold up a finger, moving to peer around the corner into the back grounds of the estate.

“What is it?” Remy whispers.

Nothing seems amiss, but still. “Check to make sure the alarm is set.”

She moves back to the door and uncovers the keypad. “Looks good.”

I let out a sigh and rejoin her at the door. “Must be a bit of nerves after the vigil.”

“I get it,” she says. “I've been living on knife's edge for weeks, always expecting someone to recognize me even though I barely recognize myself.”

She punches in the code and, once inside, resets the alarm.

My mouth is dry, my senses still on high alert. Something's wrong. “You go on up,” I say. “I'm going to get a drink. Want me to bring you something?”

“Sure. One of Bunqu's protein concoctions sounds good.” Remy stands on tiptoes to kiss me. “Don't be long.”

“Don't worry,” I say, my pulse already racing, suddenly very conscious of the Bolt holstered at my side. I watch as Remy disappears up the back staircase and then I head down the long hallway to the kitchen. I stop in my tracks and instinctively draw my Bolt, ears pricked for any evidence of movement in the house, double-checking every shadow, my mind racing as I plot out everything that could possibly have gone wrong.

“Demeter,” I whisper. “Bunqu's place has been breached. I need intel on who and when and how.”

“I'm blind, Vale,” Demeter says. “Bunqu's system isn't linked into the Sector surveillance network. It's off the grid.”
Which was a very helpful thing when all was well, I think, but is less helpful now that I suspect the place to be a trap—or a grave.

“Can you try to hack in?”

“I'm on it.”

I prowl forward. In the kitchen, I stumble upon what looks like a crime scene. A frying pan appears to have shattered one cabinet door and a kitchen knife is buried in another. There's a scorch mark on the wall and bloody handprints on the French doors leading to the veranda.
Someone was wounded
. I crouch to get a better look at the floor, see dim outlines of boot prints against the polished wood planks.
Soldiers?
I flip my Bolt's capacitor charge to the highest setting and follow the prints through the house.
Was there more than one? Is he still here? Is Remy safe upstairs?
As quietly as possible, I move room to room, finally turning the corner toward Bunqu's study where I see it: a soldier with a yawning hole in his back, still wearing the black helmet emblazoned with the gold OAC wheat stalk, lying amidst a riot of streaked and splattered blood.

Black ops.

Trying to avoid stepping in the gore, I move toward the open door to the study. “Bunqu?” I say, my voice just loud enough to be heard in the study. “General Bunqu, are you in there?”

There's no answer, no movement. But someone's in there, I can feel it.
The question is, are they friend or foe, dead or alive?
Bolt up and ready to fire, I charge into the room only to pull up short. Meera, head bowed and legs outstretched on the luxurious ornamental carpet, sits propped up against Bunqu's desk as if she's taking a nap. A dark blossom stains her shirt and a blood-mottled knife—
did she pull it from her own chest?
—rests cockeyed between her legs. Red-stained fingers are still wrapped around the trigger of an antique shotgun which must have come from Bunqu's collection.

Kneeling beside her, the metallic tang of iron fills my nostrils. I can almost taste the blood on the back of my tongue. I lift her face, a mass of bruises, eyes staring agape into an empty world. Sadness billows through me, like a sail catching the wind. Then anger.
Another life lost in the service of the Orleáns
. Then hatred. I choke back the bile as the memory of my mother ordering Chan-Yu to assassinate Remy and Soren flashes through my mind.

Remy. Waiting for me upstairs.

I reach down to close Meera's eyes—there's no reason for Remy to see that—and then notice there's something strange about her mouth. With a quick apology for the violation, and all the clinical detachment of a medical examiner, I reach into her mouth and slide my finger around her cheeks and under her tongue. There's something there, crumpled into a ball. I pull it out. A tiny v-scroll.

I unroll it and words flash across the fibers.

Onion under arrest. Caught in crossfire. If you find this, follow the acorns to the tree.

My hand goes to the acorn pendant around my neck. The Outsider symbol that will call a Wayfarer for help when traveling through the Wilds.
If you find this, follow the acorns to the tree
. Are there more pendants like this? Or is she talking about literal acorns—like the ones Bunqu handed us earlier?

I stand and look around the room, remembering the urgency of our situation. I don't have time for Outsider riddles right now. We need to get out of here.

“Demeter, why isn't the house being guarded? Why isn't the place crawling with black ops?”

“I wasn't able to access Bunqu's private network, but I can see through the city's nav system that there are several patrol drones circling the neighborhood in a half-hour loop, operated manually. I can't control them. You've got about five minutes before one of them makes it back here.”

I'm already in motion, running down the hall to the central stairs to find Remy. I take them two at a time. I pull open the door to our room and rush in. Standing in the steamy bathroom in one of Bunqu's oversized bathrobes, Remy's body gleams like polished bronze against the stark white of the open robe. A shiver of longing runs through me, coupled with an even more powerful desire to stay alive so I can experience her beauty another day. She turns toward me, a smile of anticipation melting into alarm as she sees the Bolt in my hand.

“Gods, what's wrong?”

“It's Meera.” There's no time to break the news slowly. Without a word, she reaches out and turns the shower off. “She's dead. Bunqu's been arrested. Patrol drones will be back to circle in five minutes. We've got to move.”

“Where is she?” Remy's already shed the robe, slipping into her clothes. I watch her, marveling at her calm, marveling that despite all she's been through—or maybe
because
of all she's been through—she can take such news in stride.

“Bunqu's study.”

“No sign of him?”

“No.”

She nods, taking it all in. Shuddering, she sucks in a deep breath and straightens her shoulders. She hesitates only a second. Now fully dressed, she follows me outside, grabbing her bag on the way. In the backyard, Remy reaches into the air where Osprey's cloaked
oiseau
is parked. Her touch deactivates the cloaking. She leaps on, toggling the engine, and I hop on behind her. We zip out of the backyard and down the road as quickly as we dare. The hoverbike's engine is as quiet as a summer breeze, and within thirty seconds, we're safely hidden in a copse of trees.

“Are we out of range?” I ask Demeter.

“You're clear. Stay in the trees.”

Remy pulls the walkie-talkie out from the folds of her jacket and hands it to me. “Soren,” she says. I press the transmit button and signal Soren. When his voice comes back, Remy listens as I fill him in. I can hear Osprey's voice in the background as Soren relays to her and Saara what's going on.

“Should we come your way?” Soren asks.

“No. Drones are watching the house. We need to get out.”

“You and Remy have a plan?” Soren says. I hear him confer with Osprey.

“No. Except to get out of here.”

“Have them meet us at the outermost PODS dock in the northeast quadrant,” Remy says to me. “We can take the
oiseau
to meet them. We'll decide what to do once we're all together.”

I relay the message and then, before I sign off, I say, “Soren, ask Osprey what Meera meant by ‘follow the acorns to the tree.'”

“Roger,” Soren says. Remy raises her eyebrows as we hear him repeat the question. Osprey's voice, barely audible, crackles through the walkie-talkie.

“I have no idea.”

Goddammit, Meera, why do all you Outsiders have to be so fucking cryptic?