“I wasn’t even scanning for power then,” Beckett says. “We could have come straight here.” He shakes his head. “At least we have a chance of getting out if they come through the Archives. Now let’s see if I can figure out what they’ve been doing … ”
I watch him touching, pressing, talking to the technology, comfortable in its company, and suddenly I remember that Beckett is an alien. A fact I’d come as close to forgetting as the Knowing can. Then Beckett grabs the chair, which glides across the floor in a way I’m startled to discover, kisses me once, and shoves me away, sending me drifting like a boat across the Darkwater.
All right. Not that much of an alien, then.
“Look,” he says. There are new images in the light, not letters or symbols, but images that are real. I lean forward, the books solid against my chest. I see the dim and empty Forum on one square, from up high, as if I’m hanging from the ceiling, while another shows the closed gates to the Outside. One square is so black it’s hard to make out, until I see the shadows of mountains, and recognize the plain I crossed, running to the Cursed City, and I see the Cursed City itself, from far away, white walls faintly glowing, dark tree limbs moving with the air. And then my gaze goes to the last square of light and my stomach lurches. I see my own bedchamber, two lamps lit. I sit back.
“Explain it to me,” I say.
“So, they’ve been watching all these places you see. They’ve got some kind of camera set up … Cameras are pieces of technology that can”—I wait impatiently while he thinks—“that can document time. So wherever the camera is looking, it makes a record of what it sees, so someone else can come back and see that piece of time later. Like this … ”
He touches the frame of light that’s showing the Forum. The image shifts, and suddenly Martina Tutor is walking through the columns with a covered lantern, and then I see Beckett and myself, a little of my hair trailing down from the turban, slipping out from behind the curtain and across the first bridge. I reach up and find the piece of hair I didn’t Know was loose.
“I think we’ll just be erasing that,” says Beckett, touching the light. I don’t Know what he’s doing. “I’ll loop it, but I’m not sure where else these files are being sent, or if they’ll be able to tell that I messed with it or not … ”
Documenting time. Erasing time. How can that be? I look at the image of my bedchamber, and think they haven’t just been watching. They’ve been watching me. Beckett sees where my eyes are and touches the image like he did before.
The picture shifts and I watch him drag me through the terrace doors, pull me out of sight of the windows. I’m crying, and Beckett holds me, stroking my hair, my back, and the expression on his face … He wanted me to stop hurting. I steal a glance at him, watch him blink slow, once. And when I look at the light again I’m taking off his glasses, and I practically attack him.
“Okay,” Beckett says. “We’ll just be erasing that, too … ”
I feel sick. What else has someone been watching me do, sitting in this chair?
“There’s a whole file on you,” Beckett says. And in quick succession I see me in my bedchamber, talking with Nita. Many different days of this, then days of me on my bed, writing in my book. The image moves closer, like someone leaning forward, and I can read the words flowing out from my pen. About going Outside. Then short, clipped pieces of me passing by the gates. I’m in undyed cloth and my hood is up, but I can see that it’s me. Then we’re back in my bedchamber, the plate has just shattered, and Nita is on her hands and knees, dewdrops rolling, and I’m off the stool, at her side …
“Don’t!” I yell. I’m doubled over, gripping the sides of the chair, panting, trying not to fall. My mind plays tug-of-war, like Outsiders with a rope. I’m with Nita cross-legged on her bed Outside, and Nathan is laughing. I’m swinging on the rope in the upland parks. I feel humiliated, happy, depressed, and triumphant in the space of a moment. I see the dream of Beckett …
“Sam,” he whispers.
I rise back into the present. The terrible piece of time is gone from the light painting.
“Are you here?” Beckett asks.
“Yes.”
“Stay here.”
I’m trying to nod, and he goes back to sifting through the documentation, though with one hand in my lap, where I can hang on to it. So the Council has been watching me. For a long time. And they Know everything. No wonder my punishment is being extended to my parents. But, I think suddenly, most of my sins are things the Council Knows, and no one else could. I think I see Craddock’s point when he was talking to Marcus in the Cursed City. My parents are exemplary. And there won’t be any more children. What’s the point of wiping out the bloodline, if public perception can be preserved? And public perception happens just before the next resting, at the Changing of the Seasons.
Of course, maybe my parents won’t need to be saved from Judgment at all, because maybe I’ll have given Forgetting to the Knowing and overthrown the Council by then.
“Is there a”—I stumble over the word—“a … camera, in the room out there?”
Beckett glances at the light frames, then at the books in my lap. “I don’t think so. I haven’t got any documentation from that room.”
Then how did they Know I found out about the Forgetting? They certainly do Know, because they chased me across a plain. And then I remember. My book. When I look up, I see the plain I was thinking about, and the mountainside, and I watch a dot, a person, falling like a dropped stone through the slanting sunbeams. “That’s me,” I say, “jumping the cliffs.”
Beckett shakes his head, touches the image again. Pictures and symbols flash before my eyes, until they settle on a different view, the one that shows the walls of the Cursed City. He leans forward, peering.
The view this time is bright, obscured by sun, but the camera has caught two figures, shadowy and indistinct, walking around the ruined walls. But I Know who they are. One of the figures lifts a hand to touch the stones, something I’ve seen Beckett do a hundred times, and then the two figures step through the ruined gates. I think they were holding hands. I wish I didn’t have to remember that.
“That file was marked ‘unknown,’ ” Beckett is saying, almost to himself. “Right after we lost communication. So do they Know we’re here, or don’t they?” He taps his finger on the table, then slides fast in the chair, down to the next light picture. And he starts talking to it.
“Show recording,” Beckett says.
No file found, a voice replies, and I start so violently I nearly drop the books. That voice wasn’t even real, and it’s coming from the technology. Beckett frowns.
“Show surveillance.”
No file found.
“Show topographical scans.”
The light picture changes, and Beckett says, “No, no. Too old.” He thinks and says, “Show perimeter scans. There you are … ”