Boundary (20 page)

I shrink back from the wall. At first I rub my eyes,
half-expecting to wake up in my bed at home. Everything has a dreamlike quality in the dim light of the
naneq
: this parchment, this chamber, this moment. I can’t believe that these are the words of my father. How could the same man who wrote those words about Madeline—about all women, really—be the same encouraging, loving, and supportive father that I know? No wonder it was so hard for him to watch me walk through the Hall of Archons on that very first day; he doesn’t believe women should be here in the first place. He has much in common with my mother. But at least she makes her motives known, even when she’s trying to conceal them.

Do I really know my father at all? Where does the truth lie?

I want to fold myself into a corner of my father’s office and cry. No one is what or who they seem. Not my father, not the Triad, not the Founders, not even New North itself. In what—or whom—can I believe?

It doesn’t matter. I remind myself of my mission to find out who killed my brother. Eamon’s death has brought me here. I can’t look back now. I owe it to him to deliver the truth. I summon my courage and anger and hurry from the office down the hallway to the Vault.

The
naneq
seems brighter in this dark place. Maybe it’s just my imagination. But the shelves feel as if they open themselves, spreading out before me, offering their wares like Keepers on Market Day. I try to focus on making a fruitful selection.

The oldest documents are stored in the far back corner.

I pass the empty perch of the Scribe and traverse the long length of the Vault. Since no window cutouts dot the walls, no moonlight can reach here. The corner is
very dark, nearly the pitch-black of Lukas’s eyes, and I have to turn up my
naneq
to an uncomfortably bright level to see anything.

At first, all I can make out are shelves of colorful book spines. Bright blue, deep red, even a vivid green. The very presence of these books is an oddity in New North. Most Archon documents take the form of tiny bird-delivered scrolls or newly bound papers reused from pre-Healing books. Scarcity of paper necessitates this destruction. Books like these certainly date from before the Healing and in the normal course of things would have been utilized many times over.

What is so special about these? So critical that someone powerful would have ordered their preservation for centuries?

Lettering decorates several of the spines, and I bring my
naneq
near. Strange names adorn them:
Pali Canon, The Book of the Dead, Njáls Saga, A Compendium of Greek and Roman Mythology, The Gnostic Gospels, Folktales of Celtic Ireland
among them. I will ask Lukas if he is familiar with any of them; the names hold no meaning for me.

Because so many bear the title
Pali Canon
, I slide out one of these first, and decades of dust slide out along with it. Blowing the dust away and delicately opening the ancient text, I find a script I’ve never encountered. Poor first choice. Reaching for another volume, this one entitled
The Odyssey
, I am pleased to find English words in the pages. I open to a part of the story in which a raft someone named Odysseus has built to sail home is destroyed by a sea god named Poseidon. Interesting, but the tale is long, and I need to assess the other texts. I return it to the shelves.

I turn my attention to an entire shelf of animal
hide–bound books that bear no name at all. Pulling out the first one, I find familiar language on the first page; it is nearly verbatim the opening lines from the Biblical story
Genesis
. A thought occurs to me, and one after the other, I take these unnamed books from the shelf.

They are all versions of the Bible.

Now I understand this protected corner of the Vault. It houses a collection of epic fictions—and perhaps epic truths—of stories and legends from people who lived before the Healing … from
all
people. Were these tales used like the
Genesis
story had been? Considered for inclusion in some form in The Lex, and then ultimately rejected?

So many of them, their details lost to time. Buried like Relics by the Archons. And then excavated and retold in new forms, over and over again. My mind spins. But just as I’m about to page through yet another version of the Bible, I hear footsteps reverberate down the hall.

XXXVII
.

I pad down the stairs as quickly and quietly as my
kamiks
will allow. I’ve got to get to Lukas before the guards do. It’s one thing if I’m found here after the None Bell, and quite another if Lukas is discovered. I think of when Jasper and I were caught and almost laugh. The claim that Lukas is my Betrothed won’t work. A Boundary and Betrothed Maiden, conspiring together, trespassing on sacred ground? We’d both get the gallows. Terror melts the brief smile off my face.

The footsteps get louder. I crouch behind a doorway to the Restoration Chamber, praying that the Guards don’t peek inside. The footsteps pause just outside, but then continue on toward the kitchens. Was I really quiet enough? Or were they so tempted by a late evening meal that they
would forgo a thorough examination of their rounds? It seems too easy.

I finally exhale. Counting the ticks, I wait a quarter bell. Then I creep down the remainder of the hallway—and freeze.

It
was
too easy.

The Guards wait at the ready just outside the Restoration Chamber. Hands on their swords, they are ready to attack whomever they heard lurking in the room.

Their stances slacken when they see it’s me. Confusion takes hold of their expressions, and they loosen their grip on their swords. I almost start to panic and run, but I know the only way out of this situation, if there is a way out, is directly through it. I scramble for an excuse for my presence in the Hall of Archons long past the nightly locking of its doors.

“Archon Eva. What are you doing here at this bell?”

I summon my most authoritative voice and posture and say, “Still working away on my Chronicle for the Founders’ Day celebration. Holed up in the Scriptorium until it’s done.”

“You know the rules, Archon Eva,” the taller one says. “All Archons must leave the Hall at the final bell.”

“I know the rules, but I also know how important this Chronicle is to Archon Laurence and to Founders’ Day. I missed the final bell because I was so engrossed in writing. I decided to stay through the night to finish my work. I’m sure you understand. And you know as well as I that I am not in violation of The Lex. There is no closing time specified therein. It is tradition, not law.”

They glance at each other, clearly unsure as to how to proceed in this highly unusual situation. Besides, I speak
the truth in terms of what is expressly forbidden, and my knowledge of The Lex is now legendary in the Aerie. I’m certain that these two don’t know The Lex as well as I do. Conversely their knowing this about me frightens them, so they dare not question my pronouncement. They seem to reach an unspoken agreement, and the Guard who’s been doing all the talking says, “We can let it go just this once, Archon Eva. But we must escort you to the front door of the Hall. We have rules to follow.”

“Of course. Just as soon as I make safe my work in the Scriptorium. I will meet you at the doors in five ticks.”

I can see they don’t like leaving me alone in the Hall for even one more tick. But they are bound to
pareo
, too, and begrudgingly agree.

I walk quickly toward the Scriptorium, and once I’m out of the Guards’ sight, I duck down the corridor to the Conservation Chamber. My heart is pounding, more out of fear than exertion. “The Guards found me,” I whisper to Lukas.

He jumps up and starts grabbing his gear. “What are you doing in here, then?”

“I have to meet them in four ticks at the Hall doors. You have to leave now. I’ll keep them distracted in the front while you climb over the back wall. If I can, I’ll meet you back at the Clothing Keep.”

Lukas waves me closer. “Take a quick look at this before I shut it off. You know how the Manifest shows that the Founders were stockpiling resources for at least two weeks before the Healing?”

“Yeah,” I whisper back, my heart still thumping. I glance back toward the hall.

“Well, in the Boundary, we’ve heard rumors that the pre-Healing people had Tech that predicted the weather. I’ve
been thinking maybe that’s how they managed to come up with the lead time to stockpile the
Genesis
.”

For the briefest tick, I’m so astonished that I forget my fear. Tech that predicts the weather? I can’t imagine such a thing. But then I’m reminded of what Elizabet said in her video. “It makes sense, you know … remember how Elizabet questioned how her parents knew to evacuate so early? Long before the seas started to take over the shores. If predicting the weather was commonplace, then she wouldn’t have wondered about that.”

“That’s true.” He pauses as if to trying to determine where to place that piece of information in this huge, complicated puzzle. Whether he doesn’t understand the need for haste or he’s just confident in his own speed, he makes me want to scream.

Lukas turns back to the computer. The screen glows blue as his fingers dance on the rectangular squares. I kneel next to him, hoping he’ll get the hint to stop this and run. Besides, all I see is a jumble of numbers and a diagram. He makes little noises, but whether they indicate understanding or confusion, I’m not sure. Either way, we need to leave. “Come on,” I implore him.

“Just one last tick.” He stops on one page and points. “See this drawing?”

“What am I supposed to see? We don’t have much time.”

“Doesn’t it resemble some sort of weather gauge? And look. Along the margin, there’s all sorts of notes about the depth of the ice and the strength of the currents.”

I really can’t see a gauge, but I examine the notations along the margins. They remind me of some earlier notes, ones that I disregarded on first glance. The pieces are coming together.

All at once, I stop breathing.
By the Gods …
It’s my turn to delay. “Go back to the first screen, Lukas.”

He returns to the first page. Was this the page I remembered? I scan down the page as quickly as I can. Yes, there are the notes.

In tiny lettering near the very bottom of the page, it says,
For more details on the early research behind this strategy, please reference “President Eisenhower’s Science Advisory Committee on Weather Modification for Military Purposes, January 1958, Highly Classified,” and “NATO’s Von Karman Committee Report on Climate Change and Environmental Warfare, 1960, Highly Classified.”

My heart is beating very fast. “Look at the title, Lukas.”

He leans closer to the screen, then glances up at me. His face is blank.

I don’t want to say the words aloud, but it seems that I must. “The Founders didn’t use this Tech to predict the weather. They used this Tech to cause the Healing.”

XXXVIII
.

As I walk through the doors of the Hall of Archons and into the night, I wonder if the Guards will try to follow me. I can’t be certain that they won’t—for my own safety, I’m sure they would say if I spotted them—so I head toward home. Only when the streets are utterly silent, save the usual shifting of the ice, do I turn toward the Clothing Keep. And Lukas.

I am anxious; the ice clouds of my breath come thicker and faster than usual, ghostly tendrils in the moonlight. I can’t stop thinking about what we’d read. We didn’t even need to skim that much for the cryptic drawing and notations on the
Genesis
Tech to make sense. The Founders not only had the ability to predict the weather, they could also harness and control it. In the days and bells before the
Healing, the Founders, operating under their Pre-Healing name of the New North Corporation, used nuclear Tech to divert sea currents and melt the polar ice caps. The
Genesis
was fully loaded for a new life in New North not because the Founders knew that the Healing was imminent but because they caused it. They had been planning the Healing for years, if not decades.