Meridian, page 9
part #2 of Arclight Series
“What’s a skip?”
“Watch,” I say, waiting for the signs of an oncoming power cut. An embedded lamp flickers, sputters, then dies, leaving a narrow access point. “The connections are weak. I’ve counted that pattern out for four nights straight. It always cuts a ground light.”
“I guess you really are the guy to call if I want someone skilled at watching lights flick on and off.”
The light hums loudly, fizzling as the current floods through it again, and a column of bright white threads into the rest of the barrier.
“How often does that happen?”
“Every time they push the power. The blackout’s random, but you’ll see the top lamps flicker. The light below them goes dark.”
“Will we have enough time to make it across before the lights come on again?”
“We should,” I say, turning to Rue and Schuyler. “But we still have to watch for patrols.”
To prove the point, Mindy Olivet tromps by with her partner.
They stop near our glitch-point, scanning the area, and I stop breathing. Marina shrinks away from the guards’ shadows, but our stump’s not much cover. The lights have thinned the fog. Mindy will see us for sure.
Rueful grabs Marina, cupping his hand over her mouth.
“What are you—mmph.”
A hand clamps my mouth, too.
“Mmph!” I try to pry Schuyler’s hand off, but it’s stronger than cement.
The haphazard lattice of lines and dots from his hand passes to mine and morphs to mimic the mist, matching my skin to his and burying us both beneath a layer of artificial color. My face tingles with sleeping nerves as those things try to talk to me.
I’m Fading—like one of them.
Get off! Get off me!
I fight his grip, but he won’t let go, and the guards can’t see us.
Calm. No danger. Concealment, he insists.
Mindy hears something, and she shines a light our way, but it’s only the flashlight, not the infrared.
“Nineteen clear,” she says into her radio. “Proceeding to twenty.”
She and her partner move on. My skin reappears as Schuyler collects his nanites and lets me go. I shove him as far as I can.
“Never do that again. I don’t want those things anywhere near me!”
I’m shaking and can’t stop. The last human he touched was Trey, and now Trey’s eyes are shining. I don’t want eyes like that. I can’t live with people looking at me like they do my dad.
“It’s okay,” Marina says, reaching for my arm, but I jerk away.
I don’t want to be touched by anyone right now, not even her. She had nanites on her, too, and they could still be there, ready to jump.
“They were helping,” she says.
“I don’t want their help.” I gulp air, trying not to hyperventilate. The creeping chill of fading still sticks to me like cold slime. “I don’t want them here. I don’t want anything from them at all.”
Anything else. I already owe Rueful for saving my life.
“Blinking,” Schuyler says, getting our attention.
The lamps are dimming. When they settle, the one in the center goes out, leaving a gap.
Rueful darts forward, taking point. Marina goes next, and I follow her as the heat from the rest of the bulbs burns through my clothes. If it’s this intense for a human, I can’t imagine how it feels to a Fade, but Schuyler comes through behind me.
Making it through is a hollow victory. Even with my knowledge of the Arc, getting in was too easy. How do I know we’re the only ones who’ve made it across the line? The shadow crawlers are smart.
“Maybe you two should be less visible,” Marina tells them.
As much as I hate the idea of these two skulking around unseen, we’re already tempting fate and Dad’s temper—not to mention Honoria’s. The last thing we need is to get caught breaking protocol on a high alert.
The Fade’s features blend away, leaving us momentarily with a pair of robes, and I shiver again, scrubbing my arms, in case I missed something. Then the expanding nanite webs overtake the robes, too.
“If our luck holds, Dad won’t have checked his parental trace, but we still can’t go through the main doors. They’ll be locked down.”
“Then how do we get inside?” Marina asks.
“Trust me.” I can’t believe I’m about to show this to a pair of Fade. “This way.”
I head for the side of the building nearest the outside garden and enter the equipment shed.
“Dad showed me this once I chose the security team as my focus,” I say, feeling my way along the back wall.
My shadow casts long on the side in the light from the Arc, where it shines through the windows. I put my hand to a shelf bolted to the wall.
“Get on the other side and push on my count,” I say. Marina leans against the far side of the shelf.
Dad’s going to kill me for this.
“One, two, three—go.”
We push together, shoving the shelf into what should be a solid wall. The back of the shed gives way, rolling into the main building, and exposing another entrance to the tunnel system below.
“Careful,” I warn, stepping inside. “There’re stairs, but they’re steep. If you don’t look for them, you’ll go straight down. Don’t ask me how I know that.”
Marina trips over a ground-level track every time we use the hidden door in my apartment; unlit stairs could kill her.
“You two still there?” I ask in the direction I think the Fade are standing. “I’ll have to take the lead for a while.”
Marina snorts out loud, then coughs out: “Sorry. Rue says lead the way.”
Sure he did. Not killing that guy on sight should seriously count as payback for my life debt.
CHAPTER 13
MARINA
TOBIN’S tunnel leads us under the Arclight, into the maze of concrete walls and pipes that served as emergency entrances and exits in the first days. This looks like the path to the Well.
We don’t have enough light to give me much of an idea what’s ahead; just the glow from our alarms and a pale track of rope lights set into the ceiling. I hope we don’t run into another patrol down here. With the Arclight at Red-Wall, and Trey possibly turning Fade, we do not want to get caught sneaking Rue and Bolt in through a secret tunnel.
“Where does this go?” I ask.
“Same as the one in my apartment. This tunnel’s on the opposite side of the compound, but the design’s the same. Once we hit the junction, we can get to the hospital.”
We reach the junction as he mentions it, but the directions are reversed on this side. When he turns toward the hospital, it feels like we’re moving backward.
“What the—”
Tobin stops suddenly; I stumble into his back. Rue or Bolt, whoever’s directly behind me, can’t stop quick enough to prevent a pileup. Tobin reaches out to poke the empty air, as though he’s hit something solid.
“Is something in here with us?” I ask.
“Your boyfriend doesn’t follow directions well.” Tobin seizes a handful of air, yanking it toward us.
Rue pulls out of his grasp. Fully visible, not at all where he’s supposed to be, Rue.
“I told you to stay back,” Tobin says. “I’m not running through these tunnels looking for you when you get lost.”
Rue turns to me, catching my eye. Like the first time I questioned his ability to navigate the Arclight-below, a schematic of the tunnels appears in my mind, with one, distinct path illuminated by a bright pink line.
“He says he knows the way,” I tell Tobin.
“No, he didn’t. He didn’t say anything.” He bounces forward, sparring for a fight.
“I know the way, Tibby.” Rue turns the nickname into a challenge, meeting Tobin toe-to-toe.
Tobin draws back, ready to unload the full force of the night’s rage on Rue’s jaw, but I intercept his hand.
“Don’t.”
I have seriously got to stop putting myself between people’s faces and Tobin’s fist. I don’t even know how I got between them in time to catch his hand, but mine’s stinging.
“You should have let me hit him,” Tobin says, pulling free.
“Just get us to the hospital,” I say. “Trey is more important than a fight over line leader! Rue, stay with Bolt.”
Negative.
“Not asking. I’d rather have you watching my back, okay?”
“Not okay, but yes.”
“Close enough.”
“Good, now follow me,” Tobin says. “We’re almost there.”
This tunnel isn’t a complete copy of the other one. There’s no stagnant steam here and no smell of mold. Thin gas and water pipes still run the length of the ceiling, but without the red wheels that control the flow. While Tobin has markers to use, I don’t. To me, it’s all a loop of endless sameness, and it’s a relief when he finally stops.
At least until we hit a wall instead of a door.
“This shouldn’t be located here,” Rue says, stepping forward. “It doesn’t belong.”
“It’s a security panel. Someone’s sealed the exit,” Tobin says, running his hands over a metal plate. “This wasn’t here before.”
We’re stuck. The door’s locked, and going back means we sit and wait for security to find us because there’s no other way in.
Suffocation. Cherish’s voice surfaces, dredging up her greatest fears. Crushing. Choking.
She goes berserk, throwing one horrible memory of being confined at me after another.
I brace my hand against the wall, fighting the light-headedness from the imagined lack of oxygen, and try to even my breathing. I end up gasping instead.
“Are you all right?” Tobin asks.
“Panic attack. Cherish doesn’t do well with enclosed spaces.”
“Right,” he says, facing the seal, like it’s a riddle he needs to solve. “So, what do we do?”
“Find a way to open it.” I’d shout it if I had the air. I’d also call him a few things I’d have to apologize for later.
I feel a hand against my back—Rue, reaching out to Cherish.
Calm, he tells her. Still.
I don’t move. If Tobin sees Rue with his hands on me, it’ll lead to another fight.
No danger is present, Rue says.
The familiar sensation of cool water hits my arms and legs.
I didn’t realize until now, but it’s part of my name. He’s calling Cherish by her real Fade name.
Rue’s presence soothes her, and in return, I get peace.
“Any ideas?” Tobin asks, glancing back at me. He has no clue what’s just happened.
“It doesn’t look new,” I say. It’s not shiny like clean metal, and there’s no evidence of installation. “Maybe it’s been here the whole time.”
“If it’s a pocket panel, Dad may have had it open when he showed me how to get here. I can’t tell.”
“Can you unlock it?”
Tobin raises his wrist, lining it up with the scanner on the wall. His security trainee status should open most anything, but the scanner doesn’t beep or blink.
“Nothing,” he says. “Either it’s dead, or this is a high-security seal.”
Rue and Bolt jostle past me in a space so tight, only one can pass at a time. Bolt, being taller, grips the sliding panel near the top of the seam where it meets the wall; Rue crouches down, doing the same at the bottom. Their hands sprout claws, and together they heave.
Those claws can tear through concrete and steel girders; they can crack reinforced glass that a bullet can’t shatter, but here, the door stands solid and unmoving. Bolt lays his palm flat against it until the slashes from his arm transfer to the door. They run the edge, draining through the seam.
“What are they doing?” Tobin asks as Rue sits back on his haunches, waiting.
Tobin can’t hear the tiny breaks and chips between the wall and door, like I can.
“Picking the lock,” I say.
It doesn’t take them long to finish. The nanites trickle back through the seam to return to Bolt’s skin. He and Rue resume their previous stance, and this time the door yields an inch.
“Help,” he says, facing Tobin. “Add your hands.”
Tobin takes the middle position on the door, wriggling his fingers into the notch created as it moves. All three of them strain, pulling until their bodies shake, and then suddenly, the panel slides away, leaving only the same sort of door that caps off every tunnel I’ve seen in the Arclight-below.
I tell myself that it’s mostly the Fade’s doing. Rue’s symbionts aren’t inside Tobin anymore, and he and Bolt had only needed a little extra help to break through, but that panel flew open. None of them were caught in the momentum. Most people would have fallen, or at least faltered when it released, but Tobin didn’t even wobble. How can he be that strong?
Tobin faces the newly exposed door and tries the switch again, but the automatic slide doesn’t work. He presses it into the wall by hand, opening it barely a crack, so we can see into the hospital without exposing our presence. The malfunction’s an accidental blessing.
The hospital’s full, and no one looks happy.
CHAPTER 14
HONORIA, Dr. Wolff, and Lt. Sykes stand huddled up with Mr. Pace and Col. Lutrell; no one’s smiling.
If I’m right about Lt. Sykes and the colonel, then the others could round out Honoria’s five. They all hold positions of authority here, and she did mention a teacher in her book. But what would that make Trey and Anne-Marie?
Parents pass things to their kids all the time. Maybe Bolt isn’t responsible for triggering what happened to—
Oh God . . . Tobin.
If Mr. Pace passed the Fade to his kids, did Col. Lutrell do the same to Tobin? Is that why his mother was working so hard to find a cure?
Where is your Trey? Rue asks.
“Behind that drawn curtain, I’d guess, but we can’t go out there until they cool off.” I crouch down so there’s room for the others to peek out the opening, too.
“Agreed,” Tobin says, whispering.
Disagreed, says Rue. “We help. We leave.”
He steps forward, folding his hand around the edge of the panel to open it all the way. I can’t reach his arm, so I grab his ankle.
“Run into that room, and there’s no telling what they’ll do.”
Stalling, he says.
Strategizing, I correct. “You can’t even go out there invisible. They’ll see the panel open if you push it that wide. Wait for some of them to leave.”
Preferably Honoria.
A door opens in the hospital, stopping our argument.
“Go home, Nique,” Mr. Pace says. “Keep an eye on Annie.”
“It’s Anne-Marie’s mother,” I say, knowing Rue and Bolt won’t recognize her name. I try and repeat the one Cherish gave her.
“Annie should be in the safe room with the others,” Honoria says. “And you shouldn’t be here.”
All my hopes of getting through this unnoticed vanish. Of course Red-Wall means everyone’s in the bunkers. They’ll all be wondering what the danger is, now that they believe the Fade aren’t a threat. And they’ll notice we aren’t with them.
“Unless you want every child in this building to know what’s happened tonight, the last place you want my daughter is locked in a room for hours. Now tell me what’s going on with my son.” Ms. Johnston moves into my line of sight, but Honoria doesn’t relent.
“Go home. Make sure Annie’s where she’s supposed to be—this time.”
“Don’t you dare. She went into the Dark to save her brother and her friends. You’re not going to vilify her for it. You started this. You and your lies.”
Normally, Anne-Marie’s mother would lash out with more than words, but too much has piled up on her too fast. She grinds the heels of her hands into her eyes, pushing back the tears.
“What’s important is making sure Annie stays safe.” Lt. Sykes becomes an unexpected voice of reason in the room. Ms. Johnston startles like she’d forgotten he was there. “If she’s by herself, she’s more likely to do something reckless. I’ll have someone watch your door. You can stay here.”
She’s always nervous around him, but it’s more than the silent way he moves or the way he seems to watch everyone and everything—she knows.
Every adult must know about all five of the originals, but Lt. Sykes is the first one they have grown older than. As a child, Ms. Johnston would have seen him as an elder, but now she looks like she could be his superior or teacher. Her own son is his age.
“I’ll send someone to your place. They won’t even go inside—I promise.” Lt. Sykes squeezes her arm; she doesn’t quite manage to stifle the flinch.
“Thank you,” she says. I honestly hope he can’t smell the ashy unease from her.
“Get a head count on the kids,” Honoria says. “If anyone other than Annie is missing, I want their names, and I want them found.”
“Channel two on the radio,” Lt. Sykes tells her. “Ten minutes.” He hurries out the door.
“That’s not a lot of time,” Tobin says, giving me a hand up.
“I know.”
Bolt moves for the first time since we opened the panel. He takes my place, staring into the hospital.
“If you can tell us anything about your sister that might help, now would be the time,” I say. She’s still our greatest point of opposition, and her presence here says she still holds sway with the others.
“Waste of time,” Tobin says. “I’ve known her my whole life. Dad and Mr. Pace are our best shot.”
“She helped,” Bolt says.
“Yeah, and I’ve seen what happens when she tries to help. So have you.” Tobin rubs the spot near his heart where Honoria’s bullet left him scarred.
“She helped ours.”
“She shot you. How’s that helpful?” I say.
“She helped ours to see.”
He faces me, locking eyes, and suddenly, I’m in his head. He and Cherish shared the same hive mind; his memories are a part of her, if she wants them to be.
I hear Honoria’s name, spoken by a human voice and translated into the raging burn the Fade associate with her. My mind’s on fire—no, my head. My head’s on fire, my skin’s melting, about to burst into flame. I smell my own flesh singeing as the voices of the Fade scream in confusion as to why I’m hurting myself. They plead for me to stop.
