When Copper Suns Fall (12 page)

She was right. I’d hardly thought about
texting over the weekend. I was still angry about everything: my
camp assignment, Father’s Cairona trip surprise, Micah’s removal.
At least Father and Ms. Fuquay managed to stall Van Meter’s
vesselism plan, but only by a few weeks. Father promised to be home
by then.

Cairona was Hill Borough number 3, the city
reconstructed in the image of old Egypt, a place that had the
prettiest muski glasses. Normally I’d be thrilled about adding to
my collection. But I wasn’t able to get excited about anything.
Father would be gone when I needed him the most.

One thing I wasn’t so angry about was being
co-champion to a certain misty-eyed lead champion.

Somebody that could speak in my mind like an
angel-blood. What did it mean? I wanted to know.

I tried to force a happy face for Lexa. She
spread her lips into a wide grin, highlighting her dark eyes. The
red lipstick she wore was smudged around the corners and didn’t
match her clothes. But it did match her red purse that was large
enough to be a sleeping bag. She must’ve snuck out of the house and
put on the lipstick in her unicar.

“The unicar is cool. Now you don’t have to
airbus it to school,” I said.

She walked to the driver’s side, hit the
alarm, and smirked. “Now we don’t have to airbus it. You’ll be back
with me soon enough.”

“I’m happy for you. Just—I’m a bit worried
about Minders,” I said.

We met each other’s gazes across the top of
the car. We’d been friends for years, and didn’t need words to
understand the silence. Didn’t want laughter when happiness wasn’t
welcome. Most of all, we didn’t need tears to say goodbye. There’d
never be such a thing as goodbye for the Bermuda Three.

“No sad stuff today. We’ll just ride until
the car has to be recharged. Agreed?” She smiled. I nodded.

“Where are we headed to?” I said.

“Wherever our girlish desires take us,” Lexa
said.

“So, translation: we’re just riding around,”
I said.

“Why not? Castle Hayne is large enough.
Besides, I just want to hang out with my best friend. No harm in
that.”

“Nope. Not one bit. Let’s head out,” I
said.

New unicar scent surrounded me after I opened
the passenger door and slumped into the seat. Lexa slid her thumb
into the dashboard’s compureader. The engine purred to life. Lexa
eased the unicar back out of Cornice’s driveway as I checked the
area behind us. Bess might scalp us if we hit one of her yews. She
steered the car off River Road and turned on to Magnolia Lane, the
road leading into the rural sections of Castle Hayne.

Along the way, we made small talk, careful to
avoid any mention of my assignment.

“Did you hear about all those poor people
from the Dim Cities they found mauled to death?” she said. I
hadn’t. “Father applied for Sanctuary. He thinks the hurricanes are
coming earlier this year.”

My heart flopped. Hurricanes in Corunum
didn’t only bring strong winds. They also attracted a creature, a
mutation nicknamed the Beast known for terrorizing the Dim Cities.
A creature that had never entered Castle Hayne before, but one the
champion and his co-champion would be required to face if it ever
did.

I wasn’t as worried as I probably should be.
The wall built around the city could stop an elephant if they were
still around. Plus, our brags-a-lot champion, Faris Toulan, seemed
able to handle himself with enough ego for both of us. The Beast’s
early arrival in the Dim Cities had people all over Castle Hayne,
citizens like Lexa’s family, seeking Sanctuary for the first time,
ever. Border guard patrols had been reinforced since the costing
began, and SOCS patrolled places like ale cafes and pre-Instruction
schools now.

“If the hurricanes do come early, then I’ll
be at Minders Camp facing outcasts, and Father will be stuck in
Cairona where he won’t be able to reach us. Doesn’t all that sound
wonderful?”

“Your father is headed out again, huh?”

“He just doesn’t want to face what he’s
done,” I said.

“What did he do?” Lexa said.

“Come on, Lex. Get real. I’m this year’s
token kid. He agreed to it.” Just like he agreed to let them
vesselize Micah, I wanted to add; but thinking about it hurt too
badly.

“I don’t think he was trying to hurt you. He
can’t control what the Tribunal does.”

“Maybe we can control them, though,” I
said.

She smirked. “What, do tell, could you
possibly be getting at?”

“Something I’ve wanted to bring up for a
while, now. What if I told you to stop taking the ale-meds?” I said
it real fast. She hesitated.

“I’d say, haven’t you piled enough trouble on
your head? Anyway, we’d get sick if we stopped.” She studied me a
moment. “You can’t possibly think that would, I don’t know, help me
develop a gift?”

“I know it’ll help. Whatever your gift is,
even if you’re just a natural,” I said.

“You mean commoner?” Lexa said.

“I’m saying, maybe the ale-meds suppress your
chromosomes.” I’d gone this far with my confession. Why not go for
the full hit? “Which means the Tribunal doesn’t want some of you, I
mean some of us to develop.”

At once, Lexa slammed on the brakes. My head
jerked forward. “What? Do I look like I need another bruise?”

She glanced up into the trees. “No crowbots.
No SOCS. Have you lost your mind? Do you know what talking like
that…? Don’t tell me. You’re not taking your meds, are you?” I was
silent, and studied the scar on my right hand, the mark Faris had
given me. “You’re not taking your daily doses, are you? Wow, Chela.
You’re off to the Barrows if they find out. All of this makes me
think about what Father said to Mother this morning.”

“What do you mean?”

“Where did our enhanced genes come from? I
mean, we all know about the radiation that affected our ancestors.
But how did it get into their systems?” Lexa said. Her eyes lit
with excitement. “I wonder if your father knows and he can’t tell
anyone because he took a super secret oath.”

“You have 100-percent lost me,” I said.

“Okay, so get this. I overheard Father
telling Mother about some kind of decree. Governor Winthrope wants
to clean house. Filter the commoners out until only families with
gifted kids are left in the city.”

A keen sense of dread started wrapping itself
around my knotted stomach. I didn’t like where this conversation
was going. Plus, Lexa was talking a mile a minute. She was beating
around a giant tree. One thing I did know? The Tribunal was
desperate. They’d worked out a secret pact with Father. For some
reason, they decided to put a lot of confidence in me, a girl
instead of a trained professional.

“Just tell me what you heard,” I said.

She closed her eyes as if gathering her
thoughts. “I overheard Father telling Mother about it the other
night. He was yelling at her the way he always does since Reecie
died. If you must know, she was the one with the best chromosomes.
You see…” She studied my face before continuing. “Oh, Chela. We
might get kicked out of the city. And it’s my fault. All because I
don’t have a gift.”

“That can’t be right. You have a
recommendation letter for the Illusionists. Ms. Fuquay saw it,
didn’t she?”

“Fake. My father’s Conservancy friend wrote
it for us. No doctor has seen me. If the Tribunal ever asks to see
medical proof, then we’re dead. I was completely terrified when Ms.
Fuquay asked me to snap a few shots. I’m no Illusionist. I can’t
even do those old timey hat tricks. Can you see how much trouble we
could get into? The governor will make us leave. I heard Father say
so. They only want the best people living here, and I’m
nothing.”

She stopped trying to be strong and started
crying. “Chela what am I going to do? We’ll be forced to move into
one of those Dim Cities. And I hear there are cannibals of all
disgusting things. I’d never see you and Jalen again.”

On this note, she lowered her head to her
hands. Her pain ripped through my soul as if we were truly a part
of each other. I fought tears, the cursed things.

I wanted to break my secrecy pledge. Wanted
to tell my friend everything would be all right because I have
something better than the gifts. I’d find whatever thing frightened
the Tribunal so much they trained soldiers to be prepared for
it.

“It’s going to be okay. Everything will be
alright. I promise.” We held each other inside her unicar for the
longest time. I needed to reassure myself as well as my best
friend.

“Let’s have a subject-change moment,” I
said.

We spent the next hour talking about Lexa
going back to school in a few days, her date with Byront Northrop,
Jalen’s secret mission that night. And then we touched on the
subject of how cute a couple Faris and I would be. “Oh sure, I’d
love to start my day with a rough up or two every morning,” I said.
We giggled. But the idea stuck in my head, ready to grow like a
rare plant. I couldn’t decide whether it was an exotic species or a
bothersome weed.

“Hey, how could roughing it be all bad with a
looker like Faris Toulan? I’m sure you guys would ‘tumble’ pretty
good,” she said with a knowing grin, making my cheeks burn like
fire.

My sprouting interest in Faris was a
reasonable distraction. But the task tossed on my shoulders by
Father and Yolanda Fuquay was a different game. The same over
protective father who didn’t want Micah and me to enroll in the
tiered school system because of things like what had happened at
the Shack. He had stood his ground a long time until I told him how
much Lexa needed the support after her sister died. He handed our
nanny, Mrs. Needlemeyer, her last paycheck one week before Third
School started.

Until a few nights ago, the blackouts hadn’t
been a problem for a couple years, now. This bothered me. Large
chunks of time were still unclear. Deep down, I believed Faris
Toulan was somehow involved. Who else had the eyes so vivid they’d
follow you into a dream?

And what else besides a member of the exiled
groups—the Caduceans and the Tainted—could talk inside someone’s
mind? Thinking about it showered me in a strange mix of excitement,
fear, and longing.

Lexa aimed her camera at me. “Memories.”
Bright light blinded me.

“Okay, eyes straight ahead, both hands on the
wheel.”

“Yes, mama Chela.”

I fingered my necklace. A warm vibration
coursed through my fingertips. As we passed by the trees guarding
Canterbury forest, anxiety hit my chest. Too many lives had drifted
into my hands: Micah, Lexa, and even Father’s. To be such the
perfect world, we sure had a lot of flaws.

We drove by a row of metalized plantation
houses until we came to a cottage-sized one near the street. Mrs.
Needlemeyer’s house. She rose from her favorite rocking chair on
the porch, her eyes focused on the ground beside the stairway. And
then she trudged down the steps and started stomping around the
flower beds surrounding her porch. She paused and studied the
ground with an eyeglass. Watching her made me think of the border
guards I’d seen doing the same thing on Friday night.

“Strange old lady,” Lexa said, slowing down.
“How did you and Micah stay sane with her gawking at you all
day?”

I shrugged. Azaleas and crape myrtles filled
with lavender blooms lined her yard. The garden was top notch, no
weeds or brown patches anywhere. Looking at it made me yearn for
Cornice’s lush garden; a place where I sensed Mother’s and even
Micah’s spirits.

Mrs. Needlemeyer’s head popped up when we
passed by. She waved, smiling big. A gusty wind blew water odors
into the air. It was too early for such strong winds. Trees
surrounding her cottage bowed under the gusts.

Silently, I pretended to be a queen demanding
to know their secrets. I told them to watch over Micah and send
word if my friends got into trouble while I was gone. Finally, I
asked my tree subjects to tell me about the Ruins, the outcasts,
and the Beast. But they were silent.

Chapter Eleven – I Am Thoughtmaster

It took Father almost three hours to drive
from Cornice to the campsite. Castle Hayne’s name didn’t do any
justice to its size. Somebody should probably have named it Castle
District.

We sat in silence as I pretended to read.
Soon enough, the Minders Camp of the Ideal Behaviorist loomed into
view atop the hillside. It was large and gloomy with its dark red
stone and spire rooftops, a restored fort. I swallowed hard,
controlling the worry creeping into me.

The building where Minder’s Camp took place
sat just inside the boundaries of the Great Wall. The air even
smelled different. It was less watery scented, now, and filled with
more of a faint rotten odor, a hint of the death waiting just
outside the wall.

Class subjects would be the same as if I were
attending Ashley George. The training was where the dreadful part
came in. In addition to that wonderful experience, border guards
and SOCS trained here, as well. Father told me Minders used to be
called Boot Camp a long time ago. I guess the Tribunal had the
formula for kid reform all figured out: fear, instruction,
training, and possible death.

Standing outside the concrete building, I
struggled to place names with faces. I didn’t recognize any of the
kids being dropped off.

“Baila Chela?” A small voice said from behind
me. I turned around to find a person with my face, a girl with eyes
that were big, round, and excited. Muriel. I almost jumped into her
arms. Instead, we embraced one another.

“No way. What did you do?” I said. She
shrugged.

“We’ll have plenty of time to talk about it.”
She stepped over to me, lifting one of my bags. “We’re
bunkmates.”

“Bunkmates? Does that mean we share the same
bed?” I said.