Sanctuary, page 12
Tara was still for a minute, then shook herself as if waking from a bad dream. She hurried out of the flat and looked up and down the streetway. Miranda was gone.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Miranda stepped into the loaner magcart she had borrowed from work. She could have taken her own, but magcarts were tracked. She was really doing this. Going outside. A thousand memories flooded her. Playing outside or in abandoned houses, always accompanied by Fred. Reading books with Fred’s head in her lap. His deep sighs when he wanted to play; she shushed him so she could read another chapter. Pressing a pillow against her ears when the cracked doorbell rang until it could ring no more, replaced by frantic knocks on the door that were even harder to ignore.
“Northwest waste disposal facility,” she said. She had to say it twice before the magcart understood her quivering voice. It gave a little leap and headed down the streetway. I’m off, she thought. The magcart glided past buildings and trees but no people. Although there was no curfew in Sanctuary, it was understood that after dinner everyone not in their flats would gravitate to the entertainment districts, with drinks bars and story parlors for adults and concerts for teenagers. If you wanted to wander the streets at night, your DP would give you a dozen reasons why not, including the fact that the sanitizers were set to low at night, which meant the carefully calibrated evening breeze could be carrying microbes looking for a place to root. Miranda shivered, although the early-evening air was balmy. What would the air outside be like? What was Alex breathing right now?
The magcart slowed. Miranda stopped a quarter mile from the refuse facility, too far to recognize anyone or be recognized in return, except for the ubiquitous sensors. Miranda scurried under a tree. Most trees held sensors, but they were outward focused, so directly underneath was the safest place to evade scans. She looked down at her feet. Even footsteps were tracked, as she had good reason to know, having designed the streetway sensors herself. She knew Alex wore black-market shoe inserts to prevent footstep tracking. Miranda never said anything, but those inserts, worse than useless since they actually magnified footstep traces, were her design also.
The refuse facility was crowded. Miranda seldom thought about the workers—healers, guardians, even disposers—that worked at night while everyone else was tucked snugly in their flats. She would give anything right now for a boring night at home, watching something silly while Alex holed up in his room.
Miranda moved to a nearby refuse bin where she could stash her magcart and backpack while she reconnoitered. There weren’t many refuse collection bins in Sanctuary, since most trash was disposed of from facilities inside flats and work buildings, but there were artfully designed bins around the city where people could dispose of bulkier things. There was a refuse bin painted like a dragon not far from their flat that Alex had loved as a child. “Daddy!” he would exclaim and run over. Maybe Peter had shown it to him, or perhaps they had walked by once when he was working. It was possibly the only authentic memory he had of his dad, so Miranda let him run to the bin without comment. This one was painted like a starry sky, in keeping with the stillness and gloom of this part of the city.
The disposal center was easy to find, the only building with lights and movement in the area. Of course this would be disposal’s busy time, packing the waste to be taken outside to the slag heaps in the early morning. All her senses were heightened, even her hair was alert to every stray breeze. In another time, for another reason, it would be exciting to be out and about. She thought about that safe outside adventure she had hoped to have with Alex: a visit to the slag heaps. What sort of adventure was he having now? She skirted the building with its chain of magcarts carrying trash in and leaving empty and headed to the wall itself. It wasn’t a good idea to visit the wall, except for the specially designed parks at its safer edges.
As the lights from the building diminished, the streetway grew very dark, only a faint metallic sheen differentiating it from the dark shadows crowding in. No grow lights, Miranda realized, and no trees, living or virtual. Ahead, Miranda could see the curb as the streetway ended against a looming blackness. The wall. Miranda seldom visited the wall, although some of her designs were used there. As a boy, Alex had clamored to see the wall. Miranda took him a couple of times because she didn’t want him going on the sly with his friends. She wanted to show him how innocuous it was—a large-mirrored surface that showed a mother with a strained smile and worry lines already etched in her face and a boy pulling on her hand and pressing his face against the wall, trying vainly to see outside. Other children made faces at the wall or pirouetted like ballerinas to watch their reflection in the mirror that stretched up into the sky. Miranda couldn’t see the appeal. There were mirrors at home.
The wall always reminded her of the day it went up, when you could no longer watch your salvation being built, building by building, street by street. In the end, there was only endless guessing and gossip. There were a few people engaged in building the city who still came home at night. Those knocks you answered, and you shared what little you had, to learn about the homes being built, the shops. Miranda’s mother had wanted to know all about schools. She was a teacher, so after the local school closed, Miranda had daily lessons inside. Arithmetic and sentence declension punctuated by slight, ladylike coughs. She could hardly bring herself to attend Alex’s school events. All those children crowded into a single large room. She watched for the sniffle and listened for the telltale cough. She shook herself impatiently. Woolgathering, while Alex was out there, somewhere.
Another memory came to her, unbidden. Visiting the wall with Peter, when she was pregnant with Alex. “Study your reflection,” he had advised. “We’re looking for any distortion or warping in the mirrored surface.”
“Why?”
“Those are the seams of the wall, where the pieces join together.”
The wall had looked like an unbroken, shimmering surface. A frozen lake surrounding the city.
“And the seams are important why?”
“Some of them can be pried open,” he replied tersely. “With help, and for a price.”
She realized now, looking back, that he was already feeling trapped by her expanding belly. But now, when he finally had use for the contents of that belly, he had taken her son away. For good.
“Not if I can help it,” she muttered grimly and studied the wall. Most of the light had faded from the sky. Miranda could hardly see the woman in the mirror, her hair silvered to gray by the dark, the worry lines visible only if she stepped up close. It all looked wavy and distorted. Looking at the smooth, vast expanse of wall, she felt despair that she would ever find a way out. And even if she did . . . She shook her head. Time enough for thinking when she had Alex back. While there was still some daylight, she had to find a seam. It was all that she knew to do.
A red stripe, roughly patterned with bumps that felt different on the feet from the smooth walkway, kept the path separate from the wall. She tiptoed to the edge, as far as she dared. A few years back, when the kids Alex’s age began their ridiculous fascination with the wall, measures had to be adopted to keep them from touching its surface. It was sturdily built, but enough adolescent hands pressing for seams was not a good idea. Len, one of her best world builders, had developed a device, the peripheral defense strip, or PDS. She had green-lighted his ingenious tool for protecting the wall, but she hadn’t taken much interest other than to make sure no actual physical harm was done to wall violators, who were mostly children after all.
She was pacing the wall as she was thinking. She would lose the light soon. She stopped to study her face. Sure enough, when measured against the nose, one eye was the tiniest fraction higher than the other. Before she could stop herself, she placed her hand on the wall. The reaction was instantaneous. The wall itself seemed to move in and press against her, and a similar wall seemed to spring up behind, pressing in until she was flattened between two invisible surfaces, her nose and mouth pushed to one side so she could barely breathe. As she fought rising panic, she remembered that there were strong forced-air jets lying beneath the red strip. She could feel her heart pounding as she forced shallow breaths in and out, but they were coming too fast. Her last thought before blacking out was, We do this to children?
She came to in a sitting position on the streetway, beside the red warning strip. A guardian was standing over her.
“Out a bit late, aren’t you?” he asked. “What’s your business at the wall?”
“Nothing,” she replied. “Just talking a walk.”
“You’re far from home,” the guardian replied, naming her address. Of course he knew who she was and where she lived.
“A world builder should know better than to touch the wall,” the guardian said.
Miranda attempted a chuckle. “We’ve had some complaints about the perimeter defense system,” she said. “I was at the wall, and I couldn’t resist testing it myself. I approved the PDS, but I don’t know that much about it.”
“So, what do you think?”
Miranda thought for a moment. “It was terrible,” she said. “I think they have a point.”
“Funny that you violated the wall right at a seam,” the guardian said.
Miranda didn’t respond. Her acting skills weren’t that good.
“Probably a good idea if you head home now.” It wasn’t a suggestion.
Miranda realized by the way he was studying her that he was filing a silent report. Twenty-six years as a world builder with an unblemished record, except maybe her hasty, unsanctioned registration with Peter. Her lips tightened. It figured. If she was going to get in trouble, it all came down to him. As she studied the guardian’s expressionless eyes, her resolve wavered. Her bed sounded really good right now. Give Alex twenty-four hours to realize what a terrible place the outside was; take Tara up on her offer to negotiate for his return. Sanctuary had uneasy truces, even bartering alliances, with other cities, including City of the South. Tara would get him back. Miranda almost turned around.
Almost. The thought of Alex out there, in the dust and the wind, with night falling . . . Even if he was with Peter. She couldn’t trust Peter to put his son ahead of his own survival, not the way she would. He was like his namesake from that children’s story of yesteryear—the boy who never grew up, the eternal adventurer, but ultimately amoral, caring for nobody but himself. Her lip curled when she thought about the letter he left for his son, which she’d hastily read while packing. He hadn’t forgotten how she’d teased him. Except he took it as a compliment. “When you are ready to join me, go to the wall by the Northwest Disposal Facility and say the word ‘crocodile’ until somebody hears you and responds, ‘tick tock.’” Was it really as simpleminded and foolish as that?
Without thinking, she muttered “crocodile.”
“What?”
She looked up, startled. She had almost forgotten the guardian.
“Did you say something to me?”
“No. I was just . . .”she started to explain, to make something up, but she realized his eyes had changed, no longer expressionless but wary. And he was looking around suspiciously.
“Crocodile,” she said loudly and firmly.
He covered her mouth with his hand. “Sh-h-h,” he advised. “Tick tock.”
Miranda stared in turn. Peter had been gone for twelve years. How did he have contacts in the guardians?
The guardian grabbed her arm and pulled her into the shadow of a nearby tree. “How do you know Peter?” she asked.
“Be quiet,” he responded. “Don’t mention names out loud. I used to be on the day shift, guarding garbage disposal.”
He turned her to face him, his eyes gleaming with suspicion. “There’s no activity planned for tonight. If I had been expecting you, I wouldn’t have recorded this meeting.”
Miranda took a deep breath. Honesty was probably the best strategy. “I’m following Peter,” she said. “He has my son. Our son.”
The man’s voice rose a notch. “You’re Peter’s wife?” He looked her up and down. Miranda knew he was looking for the horns, the cloven hooves.
“You helped them escape last night,” she said. “And now you’re going to help me.”
The guardian’s eyes narrowed. She stiffened when he touched his weapon. It was designed to stun, not kill. A crime that required killing as a defense was unheard of in Sanctuary, but once she was unconscious . . . She stepped back.
“If you’ve looked me up, you know I am a leader in world building,” she said. “I wouldn’t be leaving without powerful help. People expect me to get in touch from outside. If I don’t, there will be questions.” It didn’t make sense, even to her. Why weren’t these powerful people helping her get outside? But she made the guardian hesitate. He wasn’t sure what to do. His hand moved slightly away from his weapon belt. She pressed her advantage. “As you pointed out, you’ve already sent a report. I can help you fix that.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“We’ll record another report, where I apologize for alarming you and walk away. I can program my DP to show me quietly at home all evening. In reality . . .”
“In reality?”
“You show me how to get out of here.”
She saw him thinking it through.
“You know I am one of the inventors of DPs.” She pulled up her DP and wrinkled her brow in concentration.
“Play back, please” she told the cube.
“Playing back,” the cube responded blandly. The cube showed the guardian stepping forward, his hands closing around Miranda’s neck. Her face turned red, then blue. Her eyes bulged; her tongue, fat and purple, thrust out of her mouth—
“Hey!” the guardian protested. “That never happened! Turn that off!”
“Show me the way out, and my DP shows me going home and then reading quietly in bed.”
The guardian pulled out his baton and Miranda jumped, but he walked past her to the seam of the wall. The guardian’s cloak was protection against the PDS. He inserted the tip into the wall seam and began working it back and forth.
“Peter was right about you,” he muttered.
“Excuse me?”
“Put my cloak around your shoulders. Get ready to jump over the red strip when I say.”
“I left my supplies. I have to go get them.”
“Better run. You have five minutes. I’m late for my round as it is.“
Miranda ran.
The guardian eyed her sourly when she returned, red faced and out of breath. “No telling who is hanging around the city walls outside. Put on coveralls if you’ve got them.”
Miranda shook her head.
The guardian looked at her in disbelief. “Do you have nose coat?”
“Nose coat?”
“And you a world builder.” He pulled a half-rolled-up tube out of his pocket. “Coat your nostrils with this.”
“What’s this for?” Miranda asked.
“What do you think the air is like out there?”
The stuff was thick and shiny and started drying the minute it was exposed to air.
“Better hurry. That’s all I have. I don’t think it will get you to City of the South.”
She spread the mixture experimentally on one nostril. The air turned viscous, and she had to suck it in.
The guardian was shifting his weight from one foot to the next. “Hurry up before a sensor catches the open crack. You’ll get used to breathing soon enough.”
She coated the other nostril. Her lungs tightened immediately in protest. Who developed this stuff?
“When you get outside, put a scarf around your mouth to protect your throat,” he advised.
Miranda didn’t have a scarf, but she didn’t say anything. She could fashion something from her second scaleskin. She needed to get moving. The guardian helped her into the crack.
“Move fast. Don’t stop for anyone. If someone comes toward you, run away. If someone is lying on the ground pleading for your help, step around them. It’s most likely a trap.”
Miranda nodded. She took her pack off her back, turned sideways, and edged into the gap. The wall edges plucked at her scaleskin. Even turned sideways, her body felt squeezed like a tube. It was like being captured by the PDS again, except she could wiggle and move slightly. But she couldn’t breathe. She kept wiggling until she could move her shoulder an inch and use it as a lever. The wall shifted slightly. She pushed harder and continued to wiggle back and forth. She cautiously stretched out a leg and felt it push past the wall into nothingness, or at least nothing that caught at or squeezed her. Her leg was outside! She threw her shoulder where her leg had gone, and tumbled forward until she hit the ground, painfully. Her other leg was still caught in the door. She rolled on her back and began pulling at the leg. Something pushed the leg from the wall. The guardian. Her leg fell to the ground, and she heard the wall pop back into place behind her. She was alone in the dark.
The seam popped back open with a loud crack. “Hey” a voice whispered from far away. Something fell through the crack with a thunk, and then the wall snapped back a second time. She could hear the guardian’s footsteps recede from the wall. She felt around in the dusk. His baton! She couldn’t believe how much he had given her, first his cloak and now his baton. He’d never be able to explain these losses.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Seven a.m. No appointments. No health alerts to concern you. Do you want to know what is happening in the city?”
