The Armor of God (35 page)

“No,” said Garros. “Poole figured it out weeks ago, so did Akiva. You were going to find out when everyone agreed you were ready, and you obviously weren’t. These protocols exist for a reason, Blanchard. There are more important things at stake than your damn feelings getting hurt.”

Ezra gritted his teeth. He could never find the courage to argue with Garros, so it was fortunate that he didn’t expect argument.

“This is all Director’s Blanchard’s doing, Ezra,” Erin said. “Poole told us about what you found in Alice’s notebook, about the meeting she had with Dr. Logan and your mother the night before the accident.”

“Where is she?” Ezra asked, looking at the horned helmet he had gotten as a gift on his first night in Zenith. It rested on Garros’ head, giving a strange tint of levity to the atmosphere that had invaded his dormitory.

“She’s playing her part back in Roue, spearheading the campaign to keep Zenith going, but you should know that the plan she put together has to go on regardless of how Proposition Tomorrow turns out.”

“What is this damned plan?” Ezra asked, grabbing the horned helmet from Garros’ head. “You keep talking about it, leaving messages under my door, but I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about! What does it have to do with Alice?”

“Keep your damn voice down!” growled Barnes, effortlessly intimidating with his rumbling bass. “Remember no one is supposed to know we’re here!”

“Why
are
you here?”

“Your mother.” Erin had taken the role of a leader in a way beyond her elected status; it was a newly acquired confidence everyone else in the room appeared to respect. “She wants you to be part of something, so you need to tell us if you want to be—”

“Of course I do!”

“Cool your jets,” Garros said. “Joining means hearing a good part of the whole story, Blanchard, things most people even in Zenith don’t know. It’s going to put you in the very difficult position we’re all tangled in right now. It involves going against the government and the army, and risking our lives. You don’t have to do this.”

“Just let me in. Please,” he said, not giving the matter the consideration it probably deserved.

Erin took a deep breath and nodded. “All right then. Director Blanchard has a hypothesis, a very solid one: she thinks that things are changing with the laani, and that this change involves a greater threat than they’ve ever posed before. The strange behavior of the Flecks during the last mission gave her some credence: she thinks that the laani are no longer interested in infecting what’s left of humankind. Their plans have changed . . . or rather,
advanced
.”

“What? How?”

“I’ll explain like she explained it to us: when the laani got here, it wasn’t as a cloud of contaminants, or a bunch of Flecks; it was a much, much larger single living being. It dissolved upon impact, and the remains began mutating life on the planet, creating the Flecks we’ve been fighting out there. We don’t know what this thing was exactly, as the fallout of its arrival made it impossible to study its original form. We know it’s an alien parasite that found a livable home on this planet. There have been many names for this original being, but Dahlia Mizrahi called it Lys. Before she died, soon after the Creux began appearing and Zenith was created, Dr. Mizrahi began to notice strange patterns in how the laani acted, and predicted the exact behavior we’re seeing right now.”

“You mean in the last mission? I saw them walking away from the swell—,” Ezra’s throat closed up. “From Roue, I mean. What were they doing?”

“The Flecks are part of something much bigger and much more powerful, Blanchard,” Garros said, and paused, scratching the short hairs growing on his bald head, like sweat was making it itch. “What Dahlia Mizrahi predicted, what your mother is confirming, is that this god, this alien . . . ‘Lys’ . . . is putting itself back together.”

Ezra squeezed the plastic horns harder, bending the material. “What happens if—?”

“If it does? If Lys returns to its original form, it won’t matter if Zenith is still around: the Creux alone won’t be enough to fight it, and it will mean the end,” said Erin. “I know it sounds bad, but Dr. Blanchard and Dr. Mizrahi are sure that there is a way to defend ourselves, even if we can’t stop Lys from being reborn.”

“What is it?” he asked.

“We . . . we don’t exactly know,” said Erin. “When Milos Ravana was discovered, Dahlia Mizrahi and her brother found that there was something different about it. It was much more powerful than any of the others, but more importantly: it looked like it also was part of something bigger. Kat, maybe you can explain better than I can.”

Kat nodded, keeping that contagious quality of despair that had hung from her eyes ever since she was transferred to work with Milos Ravana. “I’ll try, but I don’t know as much as I would like. Working with Milos Ravana directly comes with certain responsibilities. There are many things about that suit that are different. Telling you what I’m going to tell you can be considered an act of treason, and I will never forgive Director Blanchard for putting me in this position, but I have no choice.”

Ezra didn’t know what to say. He felt an obligation to apologize in his mother’s behalf, but knew it would not bring Kat any comfort.

“There are parts missing from Milos Ravana. Both Dr. Dahlia Mizrahi and her brother were sure that there were at least two extensions to it, and its structure suggests she was right. We’ve studied it and it’s rather obvious that there are components missing—parts that would multiply its already enormous power. She died trying to find these missing pieces, because she knew that putting together the Armor of God is the only way we would ever have of destroying Lys if it ever rose again.”

As she talked, noticing how her eyes never met anyone else’s as if afraid of being judged, Ezra began to piece together what the plan really involved.

“You remember the day I kicked you out of Milos Ravana’s docking chamber,” she said. “Maybe you noticed that there was no Synchronization Capsule inside the room. That’s because we were testing something new: placing the Capsule, and the pilot,
inside
the Creux. Everything we know about the suits suggests that it is the way they are meant to be piloted, but Dr. Mizrahi considered it was too unsafe, so the remote method was made a standard in Zenith, even if the Creux can’t wander too far.”

Ezra understood, and Garros confirmed it for him. “If you’re doing the math, the entire plan doesn’t just involve saving Zenith—it involves leaving it. Your mother’s tried putting a team together to go and find the parts of Milos Ravana we’re missing. Alice was part of it, but now Erin took her place. I’m part of it, Kat and Barnes are part of it, Tessa is part of it, Akiva is part of it, and, for whatever reason, your mother wants you to be part of it as well.”

The others left his room soon after the dizzying conversation that left him with far more questions than answers.

His biggest concerns could be reduced to one question: Exactly what role did his mother expect him to play in this plan? Was he going to leave Zenith, or did his part involve him staying? Though only pilots could leave, considering it would be too unsafe to leave without the protection of a Creux, she had told him that he would be used as Zenith’s flag during the campaign to save it. He didn’t understand how he could play that role. The Shattering had been his fault.

Ezra barely got any sleep that night as thoughts and images and half-remembered dreams swarmed his head, which was still distraught by the events of the day: the horrifying encounter in Dr. Logan’s office, his lies about the true identity of Subject Edward, and the meeting in his dormitory.

As he lay on his bed, he stared down the camera. When the group left, Barnes had removed the bug that made it blind to the happenings of the room, so once more the camera looked down at him, letting someone, somewhere, know exactly what he was doing. Ezra wondered if that thought should be comforting; it was a strange way to fight off the loneliness he felt in being confined to a room, like an animal that had bitten the wrong hand.

Ezra sighed and turned away. Even after hearing that there was a much greater horror looming on the horizon, one that was entirely unrelated to his direct involvement in The Shattering, he couldn’t avoid feeling shame and regret. He knew that the damage to Roue could’ve been worse, but that was no comfort; what if he had crashed against a building, or a school? He could’ve killed hundreds, maybe thousands, of citizens: the ones he was supposed to protect.

He sighed again, and it was almost a whimper. Despite everything, he wished his expectations were wrong: he wanted to have a more direct role in his mother’s plan. He wanted to leave and help the others find the missing parts of Milos Ravana. He didn’t want to stay in Zenith.

More importantly: he wanted to pilot Nandi again, because the Minotaur had become a piece of him, and he couldn’t part with it.

Only a couple of restless hours of sleep later, Ezra was awoken by Barnes, who instructed him to shower and dress in a formal uniform he had never worn before. “Make yourself pretty, Blanchard; you’re making a public appearance.”

Twenty minutes later, Ezra was escorted by Barnes and Erin to the station. Both of them wore similar uniforms, ready and proud to be part of the first significant step to save Zenith from Proposition Tomorrow: Ezra’s appearance before the citizens of Roue.

On the train ride to Roue through the long tunnel that connected the city with Zenith, Erin gave him a document. “Your script, as written by Director Blanchard. Read it, memorize it. She has the whole thing ready in Roue. She’s been working through the last few days trying to fit Zenith back in to Roue’s collective consciousness and apologize for the government’s decision to hide it. Showing that there is a human being behind the Creux is essential.”

“It won’t help,” said Barnes. “People won’t agree with giving that much power to an eighteen year old, but what do I know?”

“Nothing,” said Erin. “The army recruits and arms soldiers at the same age, with less training—”

“I’ve never seen an eighteen-year-old soldier pilot a fifty-foot suit of armor,” argued Barnes, and he regretted his tone almost immediately. “Listen, Blanchard: You know I want Zenith to exist as much as you. You know I want the Creux and Besoe Nandi to remain active. Don’t forget I also know what’s coming. I just . . . I’m just not sure Director Blanchard’s strategy will convince anyone.”

“You’re gonna have to have a little faith, but it won’t be easy,” Erin said. “Governor Heath is going to be there. I don’t know the details but I believe he’s come to some kind of agreement with Director Blanchard. As I understand, the governor never approved entirely of Zenith, so he might try to take this opportunity to shut it down. Though the entire city will vote on Proposition Tomorrow, he can cause some serious damage to the campaign. People love him.”

Ezra nodded, remembering how Governor Heath had been jokingly cast as a villain among the Zenith employees, who often took advantage of the man’s legendary unattractiveness to make jokes. Though the citizens of Roue in their ignorance approved of him, no one in Zenith did.

He trusted Tara Blanchard, but knew Erin was right: it wouldn’t be easy, even for someone with her respect and influence. Ezra sighed; he wanted to see the infested world outside through the windows of the train, but there were none; that world was not meant to be seen.

The lies started from the very beginning
, he thought, and began reading the script.
And now they must continue
.

One of the most important parts of his appearance involved Ezra having to put up a convincing performance. He had to claim that the laani he had killed in the guise of Besoe Nandi was threatening the city (
lie
). He had to claim that if he had not done what he did, there would have been casualties, and that it could not be avoided (
lie
). He had to say that despite everything, he had been properly disciplined (
lie
).

He had to convince everyone that the pressure of protecting Roue from the laani was extreme.

(
Not a lie.
)

At no point could he reveal that he had lost control. He couldn’t refer to his mother as anything other than Doctor or Director Blanchard. She had left him a note at the end that scared him:
Ezra, this whole thing boils down to the proper use of your common sense.

Ezra hated lies, but as he read, he began to understand the threads with which they were playing. It dawned on him that sometimes the correct lie in the correct mind was acceptable.

He had to convince himself that this was one of those times. The fate of Zenith, of the Creux, and then of all of Roue, depended on his performance.

He arrived at a public square at the heart of Roue in a heavily escorted military car, all the way searching for the part of the dome he had damaged, but he never saw it. It seemed like every citizen in the city had gathered to watch in one way or another. An enormous crowd surrounded a stage at the center of the square at the heart of the city. Above it flew the flag of Roue: a golden wheel with seven spokes against a field of red.

Maybe it was the protection of the military around him, but he had expected a significant degree of contempt from the crowd. He had been wrong. Yes, someone yelled a few cuss words at him as he walked; someone referred to him as “just a kid”; some others appeared to be laughing at him.