EL CAPITAN
FITTING
Our lives aren’t accidents. This is the beginning, not an end. Do what you have to do.
Bradwell reads it over and over, aloud, his fingers pinching the edges of the small strip of paper. His hands are shaking so badly that the hand-drawn swan looks like it’s shivering. “How the hell are we going to take it down with no bacterium?” Bradwell says.
“Hell if I know,” El Capitan says.
“Hell!” Helmud says angrily.
Outside, the people have started buzzing with noise—there have been a few shouts and unclear chants.
From his bed, El Capitan finds a view of the gathering crowds through the blackened bookshelves and the crumbling wall.
“What’s going on out there?” Bradwell says.
“No idea,” El Capitan says.
But then, the crowd parts, and Our Good Mother, flanked on all sides by mothers, is striding toward the remains of the elementary school. She’s bundled in fur except for the bare skin on her bicep where the baby’s mouth is lodged, and he knows that she’s coming to find El Capitan and Bradwell, and once she’s in the room, he’ll be able to see the baby’s small pursed lips.
The baby scares him most of all.
“She’s here,” El Capitan says.
“Who?”
“Our Good Mother. I feel like I’m about to get in trouble,” El Capitan says. “I hope she’s not armed.”
“She’s always armed,” Bradwell says.
“Always,” Helmud says.
El Capitan pulls a thin sheet up over himself, as if this will serve as some kind of protection. “I hate it when the mothers call us Deaths.”
“I hate it when Our Good Mother calls us at all.”
The tarp flap set up between two bookcases is pulled back. Our Good Mother walks through it followed by three other mothers who then stand by the doorway.
“Leave us alone for a moment,” she says. “Guard the door.” They glare at El Capitan and Bradwell, then leave reluctantly.
“I don’t think you’ve ever paid us a visit before,” Bradwell says. “What’s the occasion?”
“Don’t take a tone with me, Death. I’m here out of the goodness of my heart.” She looks at El Capitan, his face mottled with bruises. “So they finally got their revenge.”
“Maybe not all of it,” El Capitan says.
“All of it,” Helmud says, disagreeing.
“Well, you can’t blame them,” she says.
El Capitan doesn’t respond. He blames himself, and the feeling is new and strange. He doesn’t like it.
“Why are you here?” Bradwell says.
“I’m here because you need me,” Our Good Mother says.
“Really?” Bradwell says. “Because I feel like we’ve gotten a pretty good show of people here. We might be set.” El Capitan knows Bradwell doesn’t want to be indebted to Our Good Mother. She has brutal ways of settling debts.
“Please—you’re disorganized, unarmed, and weak. And I think you’re missing something very precious to you. Am I right?”
Bradwell opens his mouth to say something, but El Capitan cuts him off. “What’s that? What have you got?”
“We’ve been trailing you—just keeping tabs. And you left something behind. You know what it is,” she says coyly.
“You’re missing my point,” El Capitan says. “I’m not convinced that you know what it is.”
“I know it’s small. I know it’s powerful. I know it’s essential to your plan. I know that if one of you starts off for the Dome alone, or even if you go together, you’ll likely be killed in the process. Have you noticed the shiny new guns that are now on top of the Dome’s roof—a wreath of weaponry?”
“What?” Bradwell says. “New guns?”
“They’re preparing for war,” Our Good Mother says. “Are you?”
Bradwell’s massive wings unfurl and twitch.
“This will be a massacre either way. Why don’t we help you take down the Dome and make it a fair fight?” Our Good Mother says.
El Capitan shakes his head. “I can’t go in fighting,” he says. “I won’t. That’s not who I am anymore—not ever again.”
“This doesn’t have to be an act of aggression,” Bradwell says. “We don’t have to be attacking them. We’re attacking the Dome itself. We could be setting them free.”
“You’re hoping to approach with your small special delivery, correct?” Our Good Mother begins. “We have to be prepared for the possibility that Pressia has let it slip—or had news of your weapon beaten out of her. They might know a good bit, in fact. If we surround the Dome and come all at once, they won’t know which one has this special delivery. It could be any of us. Where to start shooting? How to begin the massacre? We all arrive and circle in tight. We live as a mass; maybe we will die as a mass. But at least we are all together. To kill the right one, they’ll have to kill us all.”
“They’ll start mowing us down with machine guns,” Bradwell says. “They won’t care who they shoot.”
“Only those who want to circle will circle,” Our Good Mother says. “No one will be forced.”
“If Partridge is truly in charge,” El Capitan says, “he won’t have the stomach to kill all of us.”
“And if he’s not really in charge?” Bradwell says.
“We’ll find out, once and for all,” Our Good Mother says. She reaches into her animal skins and pulls out the square metal case containing the bacterium. “Are you in?”
Bradwell looks at the crowd through the crumbling wall. “I’m in only if I’m the one who brings the bacterium to the Dome,” he says.
Our Good Mother shakes her head. “They’ll aim at you first, Bradwell. They’ll suspect you most of all.”
“I won’t have to get in too close.” He walks to the bookshelf where Freedle sits on his small pronged legs. “If I get shot, we can still make sure the bacterium makes it.”
“That little creature?” Our Good Mother squints at it. “I remember it now. This was a gift for Pressia from her mother, right? It was how her mother knew that Pressia was being taken care of?”
“Right,” Bradwell says.
Our Good Mother leans in close to the delicate metal cicada. “Her mother is still with us. This is what mothers do. We watch on—even from the grave.” She gives a nod. “This is fitting. Yes. I approve.” With that, she moves to the tarp flap, but before she leaves, she turns back and says, “I had a husband once. You must know that. He left me before the Detonations hit. He’s inside of the Dome, my Death is. Do you know what I’ll do once the Dome falls?”
“What?” Bradwell asks.
“I’ll hunt him down like an animal and kill him in cold blood—preferably with my bare hands.” She smiles. “Mrs. Foresteed killing Mr. Foresteed. I confess, some aspects of war can be very intimate.”
PRESSIA
DOLL HEAD
Chandry, Lyda, and Pressia stand in the center of the planetarium on a small circular stage, with the bin that delivered them here between them. The theater is darkened as if it’s dusk. The stars glint overhead.
“Everything has shut down—stores, schools, restaurants,” Chandry says. “That’s why we could arrange a meeting here.”
“Shut down?” Lyda asks.
“They know what you have,” Chandry says to Pressia. “They know your plan.”
“What are you talking about?” Pressia says, refusing to let on. She’s not convinced she can really trust Chandry. She trusted her enough to get into the bin because it was their only way out, but giving up this secret is different.
“Your revolution. They know.”
“Revolution?” Pressia says. She’s never thought of it as a revolution before, but of course Chandry is right. That’s exactly what it could be.
“We are preparing,” Chandry says, “for the worst, which might be for the better, in the end.”
“Preparing how?” Lyda asks.
“With military force, of course. Armed militia. The Righteous Red Wave is needed once more.” Chandry looks at her watch nervously. Pressia knows the stories of how the Righteous Red Wave took power before the Detonations—a rule of terror and oppression; she wants to know who they’re waiting for. “Who’s coming?” Pressia says.
“A doctor,” Chandry says, and she glances at Pressia’s doll head, as if the doctor is coming to cure her.
“Arvin Weed?” Lyda asks.
Chandry nods.
Pressia knows the name. “He came up to me at the wedding reception.” She feels immediately guilty for bringing the wedding up in front of Lyda. She can sense Lyda’s bristling. “He wanted to talk to me.”
“He was desperate to get you to a safe place to talk,” Chandry says. “And here you are.”
“What does he want?” Pressia asks, aware of the metal box still pressed safely against her skin.
“He thinks you might have something. Something…” Chandry searches for the right word. “Essential.”
Pressia’s stomach flutters. Could this be the person she’s wanted to meet? “You know him? Is he trustworthy?” she asks Lyda.
“I don’t know who to trust. Isn’t that obvious by now?” She’s looking up at the fake stars.
“Is he part of Cygnus?” she asks Chandry. “Like you?”
“I knew your mother,” Chandry says. “We were in a playgroup together—a cover for meetings.”
Any mention of her mother makes Pressia feel physically hungry. She tries not to sound too desperate. “My mother? What was she like back then?”
“She was amazing. A thoughtful sharp mind, a deep heart. I thought the world of her,” Chandry says, staring at her hands. “I thought she could save us.” She looks at Pressia. “Maybe you can.”
Pressia isn’t sure what to say, but there’s no time anyway.
They hear a click. The planetarium’s emergency-exit door opens. A wedge of light slides into the room, and then the door clangs shut.
It’s the young man she saw at the wedding reception—yes, she recognizes him immediately. He walks to the stage and then stands there awkwardly for a moment. “I’ve been trying pretty damn hard to get a minute with you,” he says. “Finally had to do this the hard way.” He looks at Chandry. “Thank you,” he says. “Much appreciated.”
“The least I could do,” she says, and Pressia wonders if she’s indebted to Weed.
He looks at Lyda and smiles. “Been too long,” he says.
She says, “Whose side are you on? Just tell us the truth.”
“I’m on my own side,” he says. “Each one of us is. If you think any differently, you’re delusional.”
“What do you want then?” Pressia asks.
“I know the trip you’ve been on. I know what you may have had access to. I know you might be more like your mother than Partridge ever dreamed you could be.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Pressia says.
“You want to do the right thing.”
“I want a lot of things,” she says.
Weed locks his hands behind his back. “Tell me what those things are, Pressia. Maybe we can work a deal.”
“I don’t know if I can trust you.”
“What do you want? Start there.”
“I want Lyda to be able to get out of here. I made a promise.”
Weed shakes his head. “I don’t get it. You want to live out there, Lyda?”
“I don’t care if you get it or not.”
“Is that why you turned your back on Partridge? Because you wanted to leave him behind?”
“I never turned my back on him.”
“You didn’t return any of his letters, though.”
“Did he send me letters?” Lyda asks. “Arvin! Did he write me?”
“Lots of them,” Weed says.
Lyda takes a deep breath. She holds it in her lungs. Her eyes flash around the room. “I need to see him. I need to see him before I leave. Now,” she says. “I need to see him now!”
“Wait, Lyda.” Pressia turns to Weed. “I know that you Purified people here. I know that you created Special Forces but that those enhancements turn on people. The children you Purified…”
“What about them?” Weed says.
“They’re dead. You killed them. You have the ability to Purify, but that process…”
“It erodes the body’s most basic functioning.” Weed holds his hands out flat in front of him, palms down. They tremble, ever so slightly. “Willux made me take the brain enhancements. He wanted me to use my mind to save him.” He reaches out and holds Pressia’s wrist, lifting the doll head. “Maybe it’s not too late for either of us.”
Pressia is breathless. Her heart feels like it’s rising weightlessly in her chest. “I have what you need—a vial of my mother’s serum and the formula. You can Purify, and I have what it takes so the process doesn’t have any deadly side effects. There was another piece. That’s what the formula is for and—”
“We have all we need, Pressia,” Weed says. “I could start with you.”
This is the moment Pressia’s been waiting for. The doll head can be removed. She can be free of it. She can be whole again—herself, completely. And they can save the other survivors.
Lyda interrupts. “There’s no time.”
“We don’t know when they’re going to attack—if they even have the courage to try it,” Weed explains, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Maybe we have time. Maybe we don’t.”
“They haven’t gotten a message from me yet. They’re waiting,” Pressia says.
“No,” Lyda says, looking away from them all. “The message has been sent.”
“I didn’t send it,” Pressia says defensively. Does Lyda not believe her? “I didn’t!”
“I did,” Lyda says quietly.
“What did you tell them, Lyda?” Pressia says, grabbing her by the elbow. “What message did you send?”
“You know what I told them,” she says, pulling her arm from Pressia’s grip. “I told them to do what they had to do. I used the words you told me to and I drew a picture of a swan—so that Bradwell would know it was from you.”
“Lyda, why? Why did you do that?” Pressia stares at the ground, trying to process everything—the shifting facts, the repercussions outside of the Dome—and coursing through it all, she feels betrayed. “You got me to tell you the code words. How could you do that to me?”
“I did it for all of us,” Lyda says. She reaches into the bin, pulls out two spears, and hands one to Pressia.
“I’m not taking a spear, Lyda. Do you even know what you’ve done?”
Lyda reaches into the bin again and pulls out a piece of metal knit out of hangers. She puts her arms through the straps she’s rigged. It fits snugly over her chest and stomach—where the baby is just starting to take shape. It’s armor, handwoven. Lyda had to have made this—how? Pressia doesn’t know, but it fits her perfectly. “I’ve done what I had to do,” Lyda says.
“We’ve got to get you two to safety,” Weed says, rubbing his jaw, obviously trying to piece together a strategy.
“I have to see Partridge,” Lyda says again emphatically.
“That’s where I’m sending you. But first”—he looks at Pressia—“I can protect the research labs, Pressia. There’s an extra protection built in. If you give me what you have, I can keep it safe.”
Pressia can feel the metal box against her ribs. “Do you promise to do the right thing?”
“I promise.”
Pressia looks at Lyda. “Do you trust him?”
Lyda says, “Trust requires a leap of faith. Right now, what else do you have?”
Pressia reaches up under her uniform jacket and pulls out the box. When she hands him the vial and the formula within it, she’s stricken with fear. Her hands shake as if she, too, is breaking down.
“Partridge is going to want you to call off the attack. The Pures have everything to lose, so he’s going to throw everything at you—everything you would ever want. Be ready for it.”
How could she prepare for being given everything she’s ever wanted? “Be good to your promise, Arvin Weed.”
“You know, Willux killed my parents too,” Weed says. “I’m supposed to say that my little sister died of complications at birth. But she was a hostage. My parents did what Willux wanted, but he killed her anyway. And then when I was a little older, they caught colds and didn’t recover, as if something benign as a cold killed them. I’ve played along, Pressia. I’ve played and played and played. And now I just want to save them.”
“Who?”
“So many of them—too many to count…” Weed can’t speak for a moment. His voice is choked by sadness. He coughs and says, “Willux made me create them. Now it’s my responsibility to keep them alive.” He looks at Pressia and Lyda suddenly as if so deep in thought he’d forgotten they were there. “I’ll send word to Partridge that you’re coming.” He grips the metal box, raises it in his fist. “Thank you,” he says, and as he walks back to the door, he shouts over his shoulder, “Take the spear, Pressia. At some point, you’re going to need it.”
EL CAPITAN
HEART
They’re moving—all of them: Groupies, mothers, OSR soldiers, Dome worshippers, even a few Basement Boys, and families that were smoked out of the city and headquarters and the outposts. There aren’t many Special Forces left, but every once in a while, one will skirt the edges, sniff the air, and before getting shot, dart off.
The survivors crowd into the woods at the edge of the barren territory, which rises uphill to the Dome, gleaming white and crowned with sleek black weapons, its cross piercing the dark clouds.
El Capitan is propped on either side by OSR soldiers, who are shouldering his and Helmud’s combined weight. His bones ache, especially his broken ribs, and his skin is turgid from bruises and deep swelling. Where the ropes dug into his wrists there are now bandages.
Bradwell is talking to a group of mothers. Everyone moves with quiet intensity, hushed electricity. El Capitan’s relieved that their unifying purpose is no longer killing him and Helmud.
The mothers have been organizing the herd. Survivors fan out in either direction to circle the Dome. And they’ve sorted out the ones who will stay—children, those who will watch over them, and those who are more burden than help. They’re putting up a few makeshift tents to cut the wind and cold, and that’s where the two OSR soldiers stop.
“This one will work,” one of them mutters.
“I’m not going in a tent,” El Capitan says.
“Not going!” Helmud says.
“Sir, we were told to set you up in a tent.”
“No. I’m staying with Bradwell. He goes. We go.”
“We go,” Helmud says.
“But you can’t really walk, sir,” the OSR soldier says.
“Bradwell!” El Capitan shouts, breaking the quiet.
Bradwell walks over. “What?”
“We’re not sitting this out in a goddamn tent.”
“Cap, you’re not in any condition—”
“We’re coming with you. Even if I have to crawl, we’re coming.”
“Seriously, you can’t even—”
“I’m not going for the reasons I always thought I would. I’m going because I’m not letting you go alone. We’re like brothers.”
“Brothers,” Helmud says.
Bradwell looks up into the tops of the stunted trees. “Fine,” he says. “If you’re coming with me, I want you to promise me something.”
“What?” El Capitan says.
“If I don’t make it,” Bradwell says, “I want you to check my heart.”
“Your heart?”
“Just make sure it’s no longer beating. Make sure it’s stopped.”
“If you die, you want me to put my ear to your chest and make sure your heart’s not beating?”
“Yeah. And take Gorse to his sister. That’s what I want, and don’t ask me anything more about it.”
“Okay,” El Capitan says. “You’re not going to die anyway, Bradwell.”
Bradwell doesn’t respond to that. Instead, he says, “The wind is strong today. Isn’t it?”
El Capitan nods. “Pretty strong.”
“Hopefully it’ll keep up,” Bradwell says, and he walks away.
“The wind?” El Capitan says. “We’re talking about the wind?”
“The wind,” Helmud says.