The Disappearance of Ember Crow (12 page)

There was a stirring around me. A dark-haired man was striding to the centre of the stage. He wasn’t the false Serpent. I’d never seen him before, but I recognised the barely contained energy of his quick movements from the way Ash had once described him. This had to be Jeremy Duoro, who, along with Belle Willis, had helped to expose the many crimes of Chief Administrator Neville Rose and Doctor Miriam Grey. Willis and Duoro had been members of the Inspectorate back then, a committee set up to monitor detention centres. Now she was the Prime, the head of the Gull City government, and he was one of her advisors, in addition to being a leader of the reform movement.

The crowd quietened as he began to speak. “There are people who would tell us,” he called out, “that those born with abilities are not part of the Balance. They are
wrong
. My name is Jeremy Duoro, and I say that the answer to the Question is yes!”

People raised their lamps, waving them back and forth in what was evidently a sign of approval. I waved mine as well, blending in with the rest. “For too long,” Duoro continued, “we have been told that treating Illegals as we do preserves the harmony of this world. But let me tell you about true disharmony. Let me tell you what I witnessed in Detention Centre 3.”

He began to tell the story of the events that had taken place at the centre six months ago, his voice shaking as he spoke of how sixteen detainees had been so terrified of Rose that they’d fled onto the grasslands and been horribly devoured. He sounded haunted by those deaths.
Poor man
. But we could never allow anyone to know that those children were alive and well and living with the lizards who’d supposedly eaten them. I let his words wash over me as he described the way he and Willis had seized control of the centre from Neville Rose and provided the world with proof of Rose’s crimes. They hadn’t done it alone, although neither Willis or Duoro were fully aware of the many ways in which Ash and Connor had helped them that night.

Duoro was still talking when someone else climbed onto the corner of the stage. Tall. Red haired. Forty or so, and dressed in Gull-City-blue. I stared, blinked, and stared again. A rumour had drawn me to this place, a description of the Serpent that seemed too familiar to be a mere resemblance or coincidence. I hadn’t been sure it was him. Until now.

Jeremy Duoro finished speaking to enthusiastic applause. He hurried over to the newcomer and they shook hands. Then Duoro moved to the side, and the red-haired man walked to the front. He stood, waiting for absolute silence. When he had it, he roared, “I am the Serpent, and together we will change the world!”

The crowd surged, pressing me forwards as he launched into a speech. I was wedged in, unable to get any closer to the stage than I was already. But I didn’t need to be. Everything about him was familiar. The deep, gravelly tone of his voice; the way he gestured with his hands to emphasise a point.

I’d thought him gone forever. I’d been wrong.

I had to free myself from all these people. I shut off my light and began to push and shove my way out. By the time I escaped from the crowd the “Serpent” had concluded his talk. People were cheering and waving their lamps, and I took advantage of the distraction to scurry into the night, circling around until I neared the stage. Then I darted into the sand dunes, crouched down, and waited.

Everyone slowly grew quiet and still again as someone else came on, a mother whose child was in detention. The Serpent was still onstage but he was lingering at the back, standing in the darkness where the spotlights didn’t reach. All the speakers were supposed to stay and take questions from the audience, but I knew he wouldn’t take the chance of remaining here for that long.
He’ll want to slip away unseen
. Things might be changing, but he was playing the part of a self-confessed Illegal, which meant he was breaking the Citizenship Accords by being out of detention.

When he leaped down onto the beach, I followed at a cautious distance, keeping watch to make sure that no one had noticed either of us. I trailed patiently after him as he moved off the shore and into the City. I didn’t call out; I wanted to be sure we were alone before I approached him. The two of us wandered past gleaming composite buildings, into the older part of Gull City where the houses were composed of cobbled-together materials leftover from the old world. These were the first structures, built before the recyclers functioned. Some of the other cities had torn down houses like these; Gull City had kept them, as a testament to tenacity and survival.

It seemed only right that we meet again in such a landscape.

He paused suddenly, standing in the middle of a laneway. He’d sensed that someone was behind him, or perhaps he’d known all along, and had been waiting for me to show myself. I stepped out from the shadow of a building.

“Dad?” I whispered. “It’s Ember.”

My father tilted his head towards the sound of my voice.

And then he spun around and shot me.

THE TRAIN

I was adrift, neither entirely conscious nor entirely unconscious. I fought to piece together fragments of memory and sensation, trying to assemble a coherent picture of what had happened to me. There had been – fire? No, electricity.
Energy weapon
. Except that weapon hadn’t been a streaker. Nor had it been a stunner, like the one I’d created for Ash. It was something new, something that had burned the world with orange light.

I struggled back to awareness. My eyes would not open yet, but I was conscious of a steady sense of motion. I was in a vehicle of some kind. How long had I been unconscious? Hours? Days? I had no way to tell. It felt as if it had been a long time, but that was meaningless, especially in my present state, with my brain fogged and my thoughts muffled.
This isn’t only the effect of the weapon
. I recognised this feeling.

I’d been injected with liquid rhondarite.

An unfamiliar voice spoke. “You awake yet, Red?”

Someone was here!
Panic surged, lending me enough strength to push my eyes open. My vision was a little blurry, but I could see enough to tell that I was staring up at a white ceiling. With a supreme effort, I turned my head in the direction of the voice. There was a stranger, sitting opposite where I lay. All I could make out about him were vague impressions of colour: brown hair, black shirt, blue pants. “Who arrrrr …”

“Name’s Jules. And you’re Ember. Runaway, rebel, and Tribe member. You’ve had quite the criminal career, for someone who’s only, what, sixteen?”

“Seventeen,” I whispered. To my intense relief, my vision was returning to normal. I blinked, clearing away the last of the blurriness, and gazed at the stranger, who was sitting on a narrow bed attached to the wall.
So I’m in some sort of white room … with two beds … that’s moving … I’m in a twin sleeper compartment, on the Rail
.

I’d worked out where I was. But that was no great victory, given that the Rail itself could be anywhere. I studied my captor, paying attention to the small details that could reveal so much about a person. My thoughts were still sluggish, but I knew I had to find a way to connect with him.
Win his sympathy. Lure him into carelessness
.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked. My voice sounded weak. I wished it was an act. “You’re an Illegal like me.”

He showed me the Gull City Citizenship mark on his wrist. “Now, why would you think that?”

Idiot, Ember
. I shouldn’t have let on that I’d deduced what he was. That was information that could have been hoarded away and used later, when it would gain me the most advantage. My mind, usually my greatest weapon, was misfiring under the influence of the rhondarite.

He was waiting for a response.
Do I tell him how
I knew?
There seemed no harm in it. I hoped there was no harm; I was finding it difficult to calculate consequences at present. “My father wouldn’t shoot me. And there’s a burn on your hand. Kind of thing you might get from using an experimental weapon.” It was taking a surprising amount of energy for me to form words, but I managed to put together five more. “You’re some kind of shifter.”

“I prefer the term Impersonator.” He looked down at his hand. “You don’t miss much, Red.”

No, I didn’t. At least, not usually. At the moment there were no thoughts at all in my head, just a grey, exhausted blurriness. The effort of holding a simple conversation and putting a few clues together had been too much for me. My eyes drifted shut.

Jules snapped his fingers in front of my face. “Stay with me, darling. Come on, tell me something. What’s your favourite colour?”

“Green,” I answered, blinking up at him.

“Favourite Hoffman quote?”

“Don’t have one.”

“Everyone’s got a favourite Hoffman quote.”

I sighed. “All revolutions begin with a question.”

He chuckled. “Guess a rebel like you would pick that one.”

His voice was growing fainter, as if it was coming from a long way away. He shook my shoulder. “Red. Red! What’s your dad’s name?”

That got my attention. “Why do you want to know?”

He shrugged. “I Impersonate a lot of people. Sometimes I like to know their names.”

“Timothy,” I mumbled, choosing a name at random. “Timothy Collins.”

He peered down into my face, and shook his head. “You’re not coming out of it, are you?” Reaching into his pocket, he held up a small bottle, filed with amber liquid. “How much more of this do I need to give you to wake you up properly?”

He has the neutraliser!
I would have snatched from his fingers, if only I could have moved. “All of it,” I lied.

Jules grinned at me. It was an odd, crooked smile; one half of his mouth seemed to lift higher than the other. “You wouldn’t be lying to me, would you? Because I know that if I give you too much, you’ll recover all the way. And that wouldn’t be good for me, as I understand you could make me forget my own name.” He eyed the liquid. “I’m giving you a quarter of it.”

Jules leaned over, tipping the vial to my mouth, and I gulped down everything I could. But it was only a small taste, not enough to purge my system of rhondarite. I gazed longingly at the vial as he took it away and rose to his feet, crossing to the compartment door. “I’ll come back later and see how you’re doing.”

“You have to give me more,” I pleaded. “I promise, I’m not lying to you.”

“Yes you are, Red.” He paused in the doorway, looking over his shoulder at me. “In fact, you lied to me twice. Three times, if I count the right dose of the stuff in the bottle.”

“I didn’t …”

“Seventeen years old?” He snorted. “More like three
hundred
and seventeen. And your ‘father’ was named Alexander Hoffman.”

Shock forced my eyes wide open. He winked, enjoying my astonishment. “Oh yes, darling.
I know what you are.”

He left, locking the door behind him. I fought to stay awake.

But I couldn’t prevent myself from slipping back into unconsciousness.

THE CONVERSATION

There was blackness for an indeterminable length of time. Then awareness broke over my mind like the light of the dawn. With it came amazement, and dismay.
How does he know? He can’t possibly know!
Except he did, and it was stupid to lie here wasting time on shocked disbelief. Instead I directed my attention to a more useful question. How
much
did he know?

That I was built, not born, for a start
. Constructed by the man I thought of as my father, Alexander Hoffman. I wondered if Jules imagined me to be impervious to pain or incapable of emotion. I wasn’t. I wasn’t even completely synthetic – much of me was made up of the bio-fibres my father had invented, organic strands that carried feeling and sensation through my body. When Dad had begun to make his children – his aingls – he’d thought the human species might not survive the Reckoning, and he’d wanted to preserve the essence of humanity, not just the memory of it. So while he’d built the eight of us to outlast the ages, he’d ensured that we could experience our existence in much the same way as ordinary human beings. Dad had always said we were human in all the ways that mattered.

Certainly human enough to be hurt.

But I didn’t believe Jules intended to do that, unless it was to stop me escaping, and I had no plans to try that at present. He
had
to be working for one of my brothers or sisters. There could be no other explanation for the face he’d worn at the rally, the sophistication of the weapon he’d used, and the knowledge he had about me. For reasons that weren’t clear yet, a member of my family had gone to a great deal of trouble to lure me out, and I wasn’t going anywhere until I discovered what was going on.

I sat up. The movement made my head spin, forcing me to shut my eyes as I waited for it to pass. The neutraliser had done its work and purged some of the rhondarite, but I was still woozy.
I loathe rhondarite
. On Illegals, it worked by interfering with the neural connections that were necessary for abilities to activate. On me, it worked because I was one big mass of connections. Not only did rhondarite prevent me from altering memories, it made it hard to process sensory information, turning me into a mentally and physically un-coordinated shadow of my usual self.

The dizziness faded, and I opened my eyes again, taking a quick inventory of my surroundings. It was a standard twin compartment: two beds, tiny bathroom squashed into the corner, narrow window, and all of it bland and white. I reached over to pull up the blind on the window and discovered that it was night outside. I could make out the outlines of a few features – hills, trees – but nothing identifiable enough to tell me where I was. The Rail ran around the entire world, linking the seven cities together. Jules could be taking me anywhere. Although it did seem a little risky on his part, to be holding me on a train where I could attract the attention of the other passengers …
ah
.

The rhondarite was still slowing me down. I had to be in one of the
government
carriages, reserved for the use of employees of the cities, and I’d bet there was no one around except for Jules and I. It would have been easy enough for him to gain access to the carriage by masquerading as someone else. Either that, or he’d had access organised for him by whoever he was working for.