Alkine clears his throat and takes a sip of water from a glass beside him. “I’m beginning to think the same thing. I wanted to keep him safe, to give him as normal a childhood as we were capable of up here, but he’s growing up. He needs to know the truth about his past before the Tribunal, or worse yet, the Unified Party, finds out.”
I frown. The Tribunal and the Unified Party? Neither should have a reason to care about me. I keep waiting for everyone to look up and yell “gotcha” like in one of those stupid prank shows on the e-feed. But somehow I don’t thing that’s gonna happen.
“Bring him the key,” Mrs. Dembo starts. “Tell him it belonged to his parents.”
The word echoes through the vent. Parents. The teachers never talk about my parents.
“We don’t know that for sure,” Alkine responds. “And I’m hesitant to broach the subject with him until we know more. I’ve sent team after team down to Seattle but there’s got to be something we’re missing. There’s a connection here, with the bombings, with Fisher… I just can’t work my head around it.”
Eva straightens up in her chair. “You think Jesse had something to do with the Scarlet Bombings? He wasn’t even born yet.”
Alkine nods. “Yes, but we found him in Seattle on the tenth anniversary of its destruction. He didn’t know who or where he was, but he was completely immune to the chemicals around him.” He pauses. “There we were, faces strapped up with gas masks. Meanwhile, this three-year-old child is wandering around in the middle of the apocalypse-dazed, but otherwise healthy.”
My mind flashes back to the dream, the mist-covered city and the key hanging around my neck. The shadow behind me. Alkine’s shadow.
Avery grips my wrist. “Maybe we should go.”
I shake my head, keeping my face down. There’s no way I’m leaving until I hear everything they have to say.
Eva leans forward, drumming her fingers nervously on the edge of the table. “Do you think he remembers any of it?”
“Doesn’t seem to,” Alkine replies. “He was so young. We’ve never given him a reason to trigger the memories.”
Suddenly everything falls into place. I slot Alkine’s words into the jigsaw puzzle that was my childhood. Orphan. Birth certificate destroyed. “Routine” medical tests. I guess when you grow up like that, you end up not even questioning it. Skyship Academy’s always been my home. It’s all I remember.
Alkine clears his throat. “Maybe I’ll head down to Seattle myself before talking with him. There’s got to be something we overlooked. Children don’t appear out of thin air, especially in the middle of a war zone.”
Mr. Kennewick crosses his arms. “Meanwhile what are we supposed to do if the kid starts flying around the room or shooting laser beams from his eyes?”
“He’s not some sort of mutant,” Mrs. Higgins responds. “He’s our student. We’ll take care of him.”
“Take care of him by telling him the truth,” Mr. Sorensen adds. “He has a right to know. What are you so worried about, Jeremiah?”
Alkine sighs, shifting in his chair. “I’m worried that if we tell him, that if he finds out we’ve been covering this for all these years, he’ll end up doing something stupid and wind up in the hands of the government. They have to know he was down in Seattle that day. Madame herself was there, remember? What if she knows something we don’t? She’s a very charismatic woman. If Fisher’s angry with us it will only weaken his judgment. He could go running right into her arms.”
The pit in my stomach grows larger. Madame. The crown jewel of the elaborate story they’re spinning below me. The cherry on top.
Mr. Kennewick clasps his hands together. “You speak as if you suspect an attack.”
“Rumblings,” Alkine replies, “as always. It’ll happen. We’ve known that since day one. The only question is which side will fire first. Throw this miracle kid into the equation and you’ve got a catalyst, something for the Skyships and the Unified Party to fight over.”
“Besides Pearls,” Kennewick adds.
“Besides Pearls,” Alkine echoes, pausing in thought. “I’m going down there one last time with the key to see what I can find before talking to the boy. We have to know what we’re dealing with before we rush into things. Keep a close eye on him. If anything happens, I should be the first to know. But please be discreet about it. I don’t want him to know that he’s being watched.”
Eva sighs, continuing to fidget in her seat. “It’s getting harder, sir, to make it look natural. I can’t always be there.”
“I know. It’s a hell of a position we put you in, but if everything goes the way I hope it will, you won’t have to watch over him in secret much longer.” He pauses. “We crack Fisher, we’ll crack everything. That’s what my gut tells me. Thank you all for hearing me out on this. Give me a week. If I haven’t found anything, we’ll brainstorm how best to approach the boy.”
“A week.” Wilson nods reluctantly.
“Fantastic.” Alkine pushes back his chair. “Now if there’s nothing else, I need to head up to the Tower and look over some files before tomorrow morning. It’s a busy day.” He stands and stretches, waiting for any responses. “Very well. Remember to get those rooms secure, people. I’m counting on you.”
Without a goodbye, he leaves the table and heads out the door. Eva’s the next to go, darting from the meeting room without making eye contact with the teachers. Everyone else shuts off their memo-pad and chats quietly. I only pick up the occasional phrase. It doesn’t matter.
Avery lets go of my wrist. “Seattle,” she whispers. “They found you in Seattle?”
I shake my head, unable to form words. I feel like I’m gonna puke right over the vent so it’ll fall on top of the so-called “teachers.” The lying teachers.
My air vent fueled claustrophobia disappears as a bazillion questions attack my brain. Seattle. Chemicals. Bombings. Key.
“Jesse?” Avery scoots closer. “Are you okay? Look, maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.”
I close my eyes-really shut them hard-and clench my jaw, hoping to snap myself out of this bad dream. But when I open them again, I’m still in the vent. The teachers are still in the meeting room, whispering about me. I shake my head and turn around, motioning for Avery to follow me back to the closet.
I drop down into the maintenance room first, and move to grab the doorknob. Avery lays her hand on my shoulder.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
I shake my head, keeping my eyes fixed on the door.
“Look,” she starts, “I’m sorry if it was too much to hear.”
“It’s not your fault,” I mutter.
“But I-”
I open the door and leave before she can finish her sentence. She doesn’t try to follow me. I spend the rest of the night in my room, replaying Alkine’s words over and over in my head until my body finally surrenders and I fall into a fitful sleep.
14
Cassius awoke on Skyship Polaris pressed against a hard, springy mattress on the second floor of the Shangri-La Inn, a garish building resembling a miniature version of the Taj Mahal. Why people needed to pretend they were sleeping in a palace when they were actually staying in a cheap, dirty hotel, he’d never understand. He left the establishment as soon as check-out would allow him.
The sun had barely risen, perched somewhere below the ship as he stepped out onto Polaris’s empty, faux-cobblestone pathways. He stopped to take a glance at the ship’s outer perimeter-an unobstructed view of the stars. Bundles of light hung in the distance from Skyships far away, like tiny galaxies nested in the darkness.
It had been a relatively short trip across the country to Polaris, plagued by a crying baby in the seat directly behind him. Twice he’d been tempted to reassemble the pistol and fire it right into the thing’s head. Cold-hearted, sure, but the thought alone gave him some satisfaction.
He stepped into the city, which seemed to be modeled after some grotesque theme park. An electronic brochure on the shuttle ride over had proudly described the top level as “six square miles of nonstop action!” In reality, Polaris had expanded to its limit. The Shippers were running out of room to add more junk. If it wasn’t for Pearls, the entire ship would have come crashing down years ago. Skyships were designed to run on solar power and biomass. Pearls had allowed them to expand without consequence.