When Copper Suns Fall (4 page)

“Maybe something else will happen when they
examine him for the last time,” Jalen said.

“I hope so,” I said.

“My fingers are crossed for you. I miss him,
too.” An awkward silence passed. If Jalen had the Healer’s gene
he’d be wary of my hesitation, and realize I was hiding something.
“I owe you my legs. I thought Wiggins was going to cite me if I
didn’t show up tonight. And you know how uptight the Judges are.
Jalen Wood, Minders Camp for you.” He pounded a fist into his palm
to mimic a gavel. I appreciated his subject change.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be raiding your book stash
tomorrow. You can keep your legs, though. They’re too skinny,” I
said.

He smirked. “You just wish yours could be as
smooth.”

Jalen bit into his ice. “What are you doing
in here? I thought you were allergic to festival crowds.”

“I thought maybe I’d go check out the skin
peelers.” I shrugged. He smirked. “Okay, I wanted to take a peek at
the spot where those Tainteds shoved Micah. Is that a crime?”

“Tainteds? Do you mean those big, bad angels
with the black wings? The ones nobody has seen in ages. Micah fell
and got sick, Chela.” As if he understood how much the sarcasm
hurt, he changed his tone, and said, “Mm-kay, let’s help you feel
better for a moment. Say there was this gang of Tainteds that
pushed him. Where did they all go so fast? They didn’t just up and
disappear from the top of a flight simulator.”

“How do you know that? Especially when you’ve
heard the…the rumors,” I whispered because we didn’t need to get
caught talking about an exiled group. “And why didn’t he break
every bone in his body? Look at that thing, Jalen. It’s almost a
gazillion feet in the air.”

“Actually, it’s more like 320-feet,” he
said.

“Okay. So what caught him? He broke one rib,
and that was it,” I said, feeling desperate to have someone
understand how I felt inside.

Sure, Father had said his body got caught up
in the rails along the right side, meaning his fall was short and
tragic. But my former nanny, Mrs. Needlemeyer, was in the park that
day. She was the one who helped me after I woke up. I clearly
remember her telling me how upset everyone was to see a young kid
lying on the ground. Later on, she changed her story to agree with
Father’s.

Jalen hesitated, shuffled his feet, and
crinkled his forehead. He was about to say something that made him
uncomfortable. “Maybe you feel that way because, I don’t know. I’m
saying, maybe you need to let go. Move on with your life.”

“Thanks, Jalen, for clarifying my insanity.”
I hugged my shoulders and glanced across the area.

Border guards were making early rounds.
People cleared a way for them as they strutted through the crowds
like misguided kings. Two border guards scanned the weeds around
the area. What were they looking for on the ground?

For some reason, they triggered a ring of odd
thoughts in me. I thought about Dr. Van Meter, the contender kids,
my sixteenth birthday coming around the corner. Suddenly I wondered
if I’d ever get to experience a normal kid’s life, if there were
such a thing. A life like Father said Grandfather had when he was a
young boy. During the times before the Tidal Years, when border
guards and SOCS didn’t patrol the streets.

What about my first kiss? Would it be with
someone I chose? Or would I get arrested just because I fell in
love with a person the Tribunal didn’t assign to me? But we’d
learned to put on a happy face, for our parents, our friends, and
ourselves, no matter how confused and frightened we felt on the
inside.

“You’re as pale as your guide suit,” Jalen
said.

“Thanks. I’ll be sure to buy darker makeup
from now on,” I said.

A breeze stirred. I glanced up at the sky,
wanting to make sure no lion-bird had caused it. My imagination had
been on hyper drive since the nightmare I had about Micah and me.
Falling bits of radioactive particles weren’t the only things in
the air tonight. I felt an overwhelming sense of something
different riding in the winds headed our way. I didn’t need a
memory to tell me that.

“Let’s go, my deary-do-brave one,” Jalen
said.

“Your what?” I said.

“Don’t worry about it. I wanted you to stare
at me instead of that ride.” He lifted his arms to stretch. Jalen
was different from me: calm, collected, able to make and take
jokes, an expert patient person. A silver ring in his navel
reflected under the lights when his navy vest and tee shirt
lifted.

“Well, your plan worked.” I reached over and
tugged the band a bit. “What’s this?”

He shielded his stomach. “Don’t be doing
things like that. You could give me a nasty keloid bump. Unless…you
want
to touch me that way.” He gave me a mischievous grin,
the same kind that won me over on the day we met.

“Get over yourself. Those are illegal,” I
said.

“Not for Trackers. This is my first official
manhood mark. All of us have one,” he said.

“Manhood thing, or not. They’re still
illegal.”

“So are pet black hawks and alcoholic ales.
With half of the super uptight Thoughtmasters violating those two
no-no’s, I think I’m good.”

He draped an arm across my shoulders and led
me away from the simulator. I didn’t glance back at it. I looked
straight ahead.

The crowd had already thinned. Border guards
made their final rounds. Small bursts of cool air chilled my skin.
As we got closer to the carousel, a song in a flat note drifted
into the air. It played on what sounded a lot like a flute,
drowning out the park’s music, and the riders’ screams. It was the
song I heard in my nightmares. A cold chill surged through me. I
turned toward the wall hiding the source of the song.

“Wait. Do you hear that?” I asked a frowning
Jalen.

He studied me, as if I’d just lost all sense
of sanity. “What? My stomach growling from starvation?”

“Don’t be stupid. I’m serious.”

He held his hands out to the sides. “I don’t
hear a thing besides bad park music.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing. Hey listen, we have
to leave,” I said. The song lowered and faded. Dizziness and nausea
rocked me. It was too much stimulation in one day. And we still had
to go by the Cradleshack. Our third leg, Lexa was there celebrating
without us. She completed the Bermuda Three as we called
ourselves.

Why? Lexa said it best: “tick one of us off,
and the other two will swallow you up in a wink.”

I studied the spaces between the rides as we
walked. No shadow boy, correction, no Illusionists playing tricks
on people. I never heard him scream, so where did he go?

A little boy jumped into our path. He flashed
a set of artificial teeth, jagged ones like the mythical vampyrati.
I practically jumped into Jalen’s arms. The boy giggled and ran
back toward a woman who was calling him. Nervous, jumpy person
wasn’t ever my style. Among other things, I blamed the stress of
the day.

“Hey, that’s not funny, kid,” Jalen said.
“Come on, Chela.”

The music on the Flaming Seraph ride we
walked by changed to a tune filled with bass drums vibrating
through me just before my stomach twisted into a knot. Trying to
ignore the cottony sensation filling my head, I glanced around for
a table, a bench, any place to sit. No luck.

“Okay, I need a medroom and fast,” I
said.

“Now? Does your wee little tummy hurt?” Jalen
said, rubbing his stomach. He grinned until he caught my frown.

“Truly tacky and not funny,” I said. On my
way to find the Gravity Drop earlier, I had seen three groups of
two-person medrooms sitting just outside the back of the coaster
park. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.” I turned and hurried off
toward them.

It was easier to make my way through the
crowds this time, but the walk toward the booths took longer than
expected. Plus, I was worried the emergency ale-med dispensers
would be empty on such a busy night. The rotten egg smell blending
with water and food odors didn’t help, either. Waves hidden by the
wall behind the area slammed the shores hard like cymbals made of
water.

I’d just opened the stall door when, a boy a
year or so older than me ran across the old wooden platform running
above and behind the booths. He pumped his arms, swung his head to
look behind him, flipped hair that was loose and wild. Two SOCS
trudged across the pier behind him. The soldiers looked odd stomp
walking while trying to catch someone running so fast. They
reminded me of puppets operated by invisible strings. This whole
evening was turning me into a wheel of nerves. It was anybody’s
guess on where it would stop.

Wind gusts yanked the door out of my hand and
slammed it back with a crash. A girl with golden-brown eyes and a
dark braid sweeping her waist—someone who could almost be my
twin—pranced up to the stall next to mine. She giggled as I
struggled with my door.

“That’s funny, huh?” I said. She shrugged and
slammed her door in my face. Wonder what she’d think if I started
banging on it? I bet she wouldn’t think I was a funny person,
then.

After stepping into the room, I’d just
flicked the lever into its slot when, a low moan surrounded me. And
then the king of Castle Hayne winds roared over the booth. I moved
back into a corner, bracing myself until it passed. The gusts
increased. The walls groaned as if someone were crushing the stall.
My heart thumped.

Stronger gusts rocked the unit back and
forth. It leaned further toward the girl’s side. Electrical
fragments shot out of the ceiling. The girl sent a head slicing
scream trilling into the air.

“Help! Please! My door won’t open.”

“Just stop screaming, would you?” I said,
ordering my own inner shout to be quiet. I jiggled the lever on my
door, but the catch was jammed. The unit tilted over even more than
before. I had to do something, or both of us would be crushed.

Closing a fist around my lucky charm, a
necklace holding a seraphinite stone that used to belong to my
mother, Helena, I squeezed my eyes shut. A blurry image of a stall,
an old one instead of a fancy medroom, surged into my mind just
before a strange feeling rushed through me. I couldn’t tell if it
were fear, strength, or a belief in the impossible, as in, not
possible to move a nine-hundred-pound station. Maybe it was all
three together.

Right away, the bangs and shaking stopped.
The winds faded. The medroom’s walls moved back toward me, still
groaning as the stall clanged to the ground. Music filled the
night, again. The girl next to me sobbed, no longer calling out for
help. I fumbled with the lever until it popped open and stepped
outside the booth. People carried on with their lives under the
thickening fog. They’d already recovered from the gusts, and didn’t
glance my way or realize a girl was almost crushed to death.

But she wasn’t because I saved her.

My first thought? I was lucky I didn’t get
smashed. The second idea hit home. The angel in me, the memory
power I inherited from my mother had awakened. Although I hadn’t
meant to, I’d moved an object. Tilting something counted as a
notable intention. I’d even saved someone in the process—an action
to earn points in the costing ceremony. I’d make Father proud at
this year’s sun rally.

After several kicks, punches, and dirty
looks, I managed to open the jammed lock on the girl’s door. She
stepped out. We shared a giggle. What else was there for us to
do?

“I won’t forget what you did,” the girl said,
taking my hands and kissing them—a bit strange, but okay. When her
gaze came to my necklace, she glanced at me with an excited face
and smiled. “I’m Muriel.” It was then I realized Muriel was
probably only a year or two younger than me. She had large, soft
brown eyes, a baby-doll face, and a little giggle that touched you
in a good way, making you want to laugh too.

“Chela,” I said, eager to get Jalen.

“Well, Baila Chela, I’m now in your debt,”
she said.

“No, you’re not.”

“Oh yes, I insist that I am.” She stepped
closer. I didn’t feel threatened, but I did think she was eager to
accept the thanks of a stranger. “Don’t blow off offers you might
need one day.”

“Okay,” I said. Then she smiled, leaned into
me, kissed my cheek, and walked off into the thinning crowds.

Stunned and ready to drool in giddiness, I
wanted to try my ability again. I glanced around. No Border guards,
or crowbots.

What could one little trick hurt?

In my mind, I pictured flapping doors on the
used automaton store across from the park. To give it a Chela
touch, I imagined wings on the hinges as they lifted the door into
the air.

A whack ker-plunk. Success!

The owner stalked to the doorway, stepped
outside, and studied the flapping panels. He moved one of them back
and forth, and cursed a group of boys walking by the shop. I
giggled. They scoffed at me.

My laughter faded quickly when, the garage
door on the shop next to his started to slide up and down,
squealing as rusted hinges moved under a silent command. Three
buildings down, the doors on Mrs. Sanchez’s Waffle House flapped
open and banged shut. The glass shattered. I covered my ears, as if
blocking all sound would stop my terrible mess. Dazed and covered
in goose bumps, I glanced around, feeling grateful I wasn’t a
loser. Now, I could find some way to help Micah.

But my heart dropped into my stomach when, a
horn blared into the night.

A sound we all knew signaled the SOCS.

Somebody had broken the law.

Unfortunately, that somebody was me.

Chapter Four – The Boy Dressed in
White

The border guard holding the bullhorn stalked
toward me and raised his hand. Was he going to hit me? He didn’t.
Instead, he pushed his beret up and scratched his scalp before he
set the horn down. “Name and badge, please. You can go ahead and
hand over your weapon, too.”