PARTRIDGE
DREAM
Partridge wakes up; a figure’s looming over him. He jerks, sits up. “What the hell?”
He’s on the couch in his honeymoon suite. The curtains are drawn except for one small inch of light…and there’s Foresteed, staring down at him. He’s wearing his military uniform—an old one from the days of the Righteous Red Wave. A red armband is cinched around his bicep, medals glint on his chest, and a cap sits slightly cockeyed on his head.
“What the hell do you want?” Partridge says.
“This is what we’ve been waiting for, Partridge. All these years. It’s time.” His voice sounds almost nostalgic.
“Time for what, Foresteed?”
“They’re coming for us. Your father is dead. It’s just us now. Just us.”
“Who’s coming? You’re not making sense. Jesus. Where’s Beckley? Where’s Iralene?”
“I wanted us to talk alone,” Foresteed says, reaching into the pocket of his dark uniform jacket. “I have another little recording for you, Partridge.” He pulls out the handheld and gives it to Partridge. “Press play.”
“I don’t want to hear any more recordings. You got me?”
Foresteed unbuttons his jacket, reaches into a holster strapped around his chest, and pulls out a small pistol—again, it looks like it’s from the Before. He holds the gun at his side, pointed at the floor. “Press play.” It’s the calmness of his voice that scares Partridge the most—detached, bloodless.
Partridge swallows dryly. He touches the play button. The screen remains dark, but he hears voices—lightly muffled but still distinct.
“We have to get you out.” It’s Pressia’s voice, unmistakably. “They’re going to put you away and take the baby once it’s born.”
Partridge glances at Foresteed, but Foresteed has his back turned. Pressia isn’t talking to Lyda, is she? They won’t take the baby, Partridge wants to say. That’s crazy. Where did Pressia come up with that? His pulse quickens.
“I want to go back to the mothers,” Lyda says. “This place—it can’t be saved.” Partridge almost laughs. Lyda can’t want to go back to the mothers. She’s here, safe. But he knows that Lyda didn’t want to come in in the first place.
“Listen,” Pressia says. “We have the means to take down the Dome.”
“Do you hear that?” Foresteed mutters, turning back to Partridge. With a stiff arm, he starts banging the pistol against his leg.
“Are you really going to?” Lyda says. “Can you?” She sounds hopeful. My God. Why would she want to take the Dome down? Is she just jealous of the wedding? Has she believed Pressia about the baby being taken away? Has she gone crazy?
“If Partridge has turned on us,” Pressia says, “we might have to.”
That’s it. The sounds fade away. Partridge stares at the black shiny screen. “Turned on them?” Partridge says. He feels utterly betrayed. “She walks in here, sees a wedding, and thinks she’s got a handle on the whole situation?” Partridge is stunned, but then he hears the beat of Foresteed’s pistol steadily banging against his leg. Foresteed thinks Pressia’s going to take down the Dome. This is what we’ve been waiting for, Partridge. All these years. It’s time. He thinks the wretches are coming for them. “Listen, Foresteed. They can’t take down the Dome. There’s no way.”
“You don’t know anything. That trip to Ireland put her in contact with a very advanced people who might see us as a threat.”
“No, no.” Partridge rubs the back of his neck. “Something’s wrong. You’ve taken this recording out of context.”
“We have to put a stop to her,” Foresteed says. “She can’t be allowed to gain any momentum. I’ve had to take action.”
Partridge stands up. “Foresteed…what did you do?”
“I’m arming our militia in the Dome.”
“You’re giving out guns to people who’ve been killing themselves?”
“Only our militia—able-bodied men. We must defend what’s ours. The Special Forces troops out there now are pathetic. They were rushed—a bad batch. We have no one protecting us anymore. Not really. I had to open up the stocks.”
“This is crazy. Let me talk to Pressia and Lyda. I can set them straight. It’s just a mix-up.”
“You can’t talk to Pressia and Lyda,” Foresteed says.
“Why not?” Partridge says, feeling threatened.
“They’re gone.”
“What? Are you kidding me?” Partridge walks to the curtains and pulls them wide open. There’s a view of the street. He sees people bustling below, running in all directions. Panic. Are they carrying guns? It’s a disaster. “Gone where?”
“If we knew where they were,” Foresteed says, “you’d be able to talk to them.”
Partridge turns to Foresteed. “Have they gotten out of the Dome?”
“We have no evidence that anyone has escaped. We think they’re here somewhere.”
“It’s a Dome, for shit’s sake! It can’t be that hard to find them!”
Foresteed lifts the pistol, rubs it gently. “You know what we could be in for…”
Partridge takes a deep breath. He imagines the Dome being infiltrated by Beasts, Groupies, the mothers, the OSR… He sees the Pures—pale and dazed, completely unprepared, walking around in their cardigans, their boat shoes. They’ll be bludgeoned to death. The Dome will be ransacked. Special Forces will only make things bloodier. The inferior race—Pures. The wretches will bring diseases with them—ones they’ve already survived but that the Pures won’t have immunities to. If the Dome’s seal is broken, the air itself will choke them. Chaos. Bloodshed. A huge death toll. And then it hits him. “If my sister says she has the means, it’s the truth.”
“We have outside confirmation,” Foresteed says. “We’ve captured the traitor who led them to the airship. We’ve gotten enough data from him to confirm that they have some kind of agent—chemical warfare of some kind.”
“What traitor?”
“A Special Forces soldier who went rogue.”
Not Hastings. Not Silas Hastings. Please, no. “Who?”
“Someone you once knew well, it turns out. Hastings.”
Partridge tightens his grip on the curtains. “You didn’t torture him to get—”
“No. He tried to fight it, but there was only so much he could do. He’s programmed to give in to us. Behavioral coding,” Foresteed says wistfully. “If only your mother hadn’t blocked yours.”
Partridge is thankful for that. He can still make his own decisions—for better, for worse. “Can I talk to him?”
Foresteed walks up to Partridge, stepping into the beam of fake sun streaming through the window. Foresteed is glazed in sweat. He lifts the gun and positions it in the soft pocket behind Partridge’s jawbone. He says, “We are going to be ready. Your sister, if found, will be executed. And you, Partridge—you’d better do the right thing and help draw her in. Because you know what happens in a revolution?” Foresteed pushes the pistol in deeper. “The wretches will chop your head off first, but not if I’m moved to do it for them. Do you know what I’m saying?”
Partridge nods, and then, like a shot through his gut, he thinks of his own baby. Will his child be strong enough to survive if the Dome is taken down? Just because the child was conceived out there doesn’t mean it will be tougher or more immune.
“Do you have a plan?” Foresteed asks.
“I need to get her grandfather for her. I need that.” Could he trust Arvin to send word out among Cygnus? Did they help her escape? Or are they looking for her too?
Foresteed squints. His eyes tighten to watery beads. He says, “Can I trust you?”
“You already said it. My father’s dead. It’s just us now, Foresteed. You and me.”
Foresteed smiles with one side of his mouth and lowers the gun. His eyes quiver over Partridge’s face. “That’s right. You and me.” Foresteed straightens his Righteous Red Wave uniform with a few quick jerks. It’s possible that Foresteed is looking forward to this, as nostalgic as he is for the good old days of the Righteous Red Wave. He gives Partridge a quick salute and then walks to the door, his pistol still held in one hand. Without looking back, he says, “Get the old man.” And then he walks out the door and down the hall.
Partridge tries to rub away the lingering feeling of the gun pressed under his chin.
Beckley appears. “Report went out. State of emergency. Recorded message from Foresteed. He said the wretches are going to rise up. He said the time is now. Is it true?”
Partridge studies Beckley’s face for a moment. “I know what you think of me.”
“You do?”
“You think I’m in too deep. You think I have no idea what I’m doing. You think I’m going to drown. Sink or swim, and you’re betting I sink.”
“Are those metaphors? I don’t understand metaphors.”
“Knock off the bullshit. You think I’m sinking, don’t you?”
“Partridge, we don’t have time—”
“I can’t even tell if I’m sinking or the water’s rising all around me.” He looks around the room seeing none of it, feeling blind.
“Partridge, what can I do? Give me an order.”
That’s right. Partridge is supposed to be in charge—even if he has no power, Beckley’s on his side, isn’t he? “You’ve got to get me to Peekins—the chambers.”
“We should go fast. It’s starting to get chaotic out there.”
“Iralene’s coming with us. And no one can see us.”
“I’ll figure it out.”
“Glassings. I need him safe. I need to talk to him too.”
Beckley shakes his head and looks out the window, as if he’s trying to figure out the weather—as if it could change. The skin around his eyes is dark—sleeplessly so.
“Beckley. What is it?”
“Glassings.”
“What about him?”
Beckley looks at Partridge. “He died in the night.”
“What do you mean? Was Foresteed involved? Did he do it?”
“Blood clot. In his heart. Foresteed’s men were moving in to interrogate him about Lyda and Pressia, but he was gone.”
Partridge wonders if he knew on some level that they were coming back for more, if he willed himself to die because he couldn’t take another round. “I should have gone to see him. I went to the Personal Loss Archives to see my brother’s box—it was empty. I could have been there. Maybe I could have…”
“He’s gone, Partridge. Now you have to concentrate on the living.”
Partridge feels fatherless—an orphan who’s been orphaned again. “But I need to see him. I need Glassings. I can’t do this alone…”
“You’ve got to have some faith in other people.”
Partridge sees a man running diagonally down the street, a rifle strapped to his back. Militia. Partridge looks up and sees his own reflection. I’m not my father, he wants to tell the hazy image of his own face. I’m not my father. But then he remembers the clerk’s vibrating hand again. Yes, his brother is everywhere. His mother is everywhere. But so is his father. He says, “I’m Willux’s son. What have I ever learned about having faith in other people?”
Beckley walks over and grabs him by the arms. “Get Iralene. We have to go. Now.”
Partridge walks quickly down the hall to the bedroom. He feels robotic. He can’t process Glassings’ death. He grips the cool knob. He opens the door. He thinks of life and death—a thin membrane that separates the two. A doorway…sometimes closed, sometimes open.
Iralene is sleeping peacefully, her light curls covering the silky pillow.
He walks to her, sits on the bed, and gently shakes her shoulder. “Iralene,” he whispers. “Iralene, wake up. Iralene.”
She opens her eyes and rolls to her back. “I was having a dream,” she says. “I’m still not used to how real they are, Partridge. It was so real.”
“A good dream this time?”
She nods.
He rubs his fists together—knuckles bumping over knuckles. “I’m scared, Iralene. Foresteed’s told the people that there’s an uprising coming.”
She sits up and puts her hand on his chest. “We’ll be okay, Partridge. No matter what.”
“No,” Partridge says. “If they come at us, people are going to die, Iralene. Do you know what I’m saying?”
She wraps her arms around him. She whispers, “In the dream, we were happy. We had a house, and it had flowered curtains. You built the house, Partridge. It was in a field, and the wind blew through the grass. I think it was the future.”
“I don’t think that’s how dreams work, Iralene.”
“It was so real. It was better than the orb. We walked from room to room and peered out the windows. What would you say if I made a place like that real?”
He likes the sound of Iralene’s voice. He closes his eyes for a moment and imagines the house.
“Tulips,” she says. “That’s what was stitched on the curtains. Tulips—thousands of them. I could touch the stitches with my fingertips, and then when I looked outside of another window, there was a field of tulips, bobbing their heavy heads in the breezes.”
“It wasn’t just an orb?”
“No, it was real. Do you think I haven’t heard about the home that Lyda made for you, that dark ashen world from the orb? She’s not the only one who can make a home for you, Partridge.”
“Who told you about that?”
“I know things—more than you give me credit for.”
“I didn’t mean it that way. I just… What home are you talking about making for us?”
“What if they could create a home for us where we’ll all be together? All of us. Even those you’ve lost, Partridge.”
A world with his mother and Sedge? Not his father—not him, no. “Glassings died in the night.” He can only whisper the words.
“Glassings could be there too,” Iralene says, as if she’s not afraid of death, and maybe she isn’t.
“That’s what they call heaven, Iralene.”
“But what if it could be here, in the Dome?”
“It’s not possible. You’re still dreaming.”
“We could be happy there. It’s the future that we could walk into one day, if we want. Lie back,” she says. “Lie back with me and dream a little.” She looks dreamy. Her eyes are so crystal clear and beautiful.
He can’t dream—not even a little. He has to bring Pressia’s grandfather back up for air. He has to find Pressia and Lyda—that’s who he’s supposed to walk into the future with. “No.” He’s already wasted too much time. “You can’t be here alone. It’s no longer safe. Come with me.”
“Where else would I want to be?”
“I’ll let you get ready,” he says.
She promises to be quick.
He walks to the door, closes it quietly, and jogs down the hall, hoping Beckley’s found a way to get them out of here without being seen.
As he walks into the suite’s living room, he sees a stretcher, covered in white sheets. It’s not logical, but he thinks of Glassings; this stretcher can’t be for him. He’s dead…
The door to the suite opens. Beckley’s talking to someone in the hall, thanking the person in a hushed voice. He shuts the door and, holding two lab coats on hangers, turns to face Partridge, who says, “What’s wrong? Who’s sick?”
“Not sick,” Beckley says. “Dead.”
“Who?”
“For now,” Beckley says, “you.”