Broken Moon Page 4

  FOUR

  “Good evening, Elijah.”

  The oily words surprise me. I know that voice, and it is not Home Guard.

  The door clicks shut with an authoritative snap. Stepping back into the living room, my father nods his acknowledgement to the man who has greeted him. “How are you, Connor?”

  With considerable dismay, I see a familiar figure round the corner. The City’s Chief Medical Officer, Connor Black, is widely regarded as an excellent physician, but a cruel man. It is an odd combination, and one that works out poorly for the denizens of the Upper City. He is charged with the health and welfare of the indigent, but few families lack their tales of him or his underlings roughly setting bones or administering Caesarian sections without anesthetic.

  Looking past him, I also register the presence of two tall guards, both men this time, their silver-plated vests putting off a menacing aura; they are not the same guards we were following. In their relaxed state, hands clasped loosely behind their backs and feet spread, they seem slightly less threatening.

  “What can I do for you tonight?” Papa asks, gesturing politely to the room’s single armchair with his newspaper, which I’ve never seen him read before. It is folded back to one of the inner sections, as though he were in the middle of the story on Deck 15’s new textile factory. He has artfully propped his reading glasses on top of his head.

  Doctor Black ignores the question, the invitation to sit. Instead, he glances around the room pleasantly, taking in the scene. If he notices our sweaty faces and clinging shirts, he gives no sign. He turns to Pip, still holding the faded blue car in one hand.

  “How are you, young man?” he asks, as though we are at a midnight birthday party. I find his courtesy even more unnerving than his fabled cruelty.

  Pip is gazing apprehensively at the guards. His understanding of the twist in his fate is limited, and he fears them still, as he always has. He says nothing.

  “Say hello, son,” Papa prompts.

  “Hello.”

  “Hello to you,” the doctor nods, bouncing slightly on the soles of his shoddy loafers. A man of extremes, he is famous for his principles, living and working among those he treats, dressing like them. He even sends his hateful daughter, Tate, to the same run-down Upper City school we attended until we left at age 15 to pursue our apprenticeships. It is these contrasts that make Connor Black so frightening. I wonder if those in the Lower City, who treat him like a working-class hero, have heard the rumors that circulate up here. If they knew, would he still be the Party’s right hand, his face bobbing placidly over the Mayor’s shoulder in every televised speech?

  “Is there anything I can help you with?” Papa asks again. He places a subtle emphasis on the word I.

  “Well, now, maybe. We’ve had a little mishap,” the doctor continues, smiling to reassure us that it is nothing he can’t handle. He makes it sound like someone has spilled soup on the floor. Curving his head to look right at us, he rests his gaze briefly on Enoch, who has his hands clasped behind his back in a weird simulacrum of the guards’ pose. My so-called brother stiffens slightly, from pain or apprehension. Or both. “I just wanted to ask you a few questions about it.”

  “Of course.” Papa nods politely, taking a seat in the chair Doctor Black refused, resting his newspaper on the arm. I wonder if I’m the only one who can see the tightness around his eyes.

  “Where were you tonight?” Suddenly he is looking right at me.

  Behind him, Papa Bear catches my eye, giving me the smallest of nods, belaying the order that I not speak.

  “Up at the Top of the World,” I say, trying to keep the tremble from my voice. I can hear Enoch breathing very quickly through his nose.

  “Why?” the doctor says.

  “It’s where we always go when we’re back from mission.” I hear Papa’s voice: The best lies contain the most truth. We’ve lied before, about smaller things than this. About visiting places we aren’t supposed to go: the bombed temples and churches; the Painter’s Palace, with its frescoes of gods and folklore. And not infrequently, two people want the same thing where there is only one. A book, say, or a rare artifact. It is easiest to tell both it doesn’t exist, even if it does. But I’ve never lied like this.

  Doctor Black cocks his head at me, considering my words. “What did you do up there?”

  “Talked,” I say simply. “Ate some apples.”

  “Talked with whom?” As if it isn’t obvious that Enoch and I have been out together, our breathing only now slowing, our hairlines still damp.

  “With Enoch.” Doctor Black’s gaze lingers on him. The tension in the room presses in on me like a solid force, suffocating in its insistence. I feel slightly guilty about shifting the focus away from myself, however unintentionally.

  “And you?”

  Enoch turns his head to the doctor, waiting politely for him to finish the question. I can see how much it’s costing him to hold his arms naturally, to loosen the muscles of his face.

  “Where were you tonight?”

  “I was down in the Lower City earlier today,” Enoch answers. Doctor Black knows all about our work; this will not surprise him. “I came home, then met Naiya a few levels up, like she says.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.” Impressively, Enoch appears almost unconcerned, as people esteemed by the Party ought to. But the Party is no friend of ours right now; perhaps it never can be again. The question of Amy dangles in front of me, but I am helpless to answer it. I glance at Papa, who displays only a mild curiosity in the proceedings, as though we are a passably interesting television program.

  The doctor sighs in disappointment. “The truth is, we’ve quite a mess on our hands.” He says it conspiratorially. We’re all on the same side, this voice seems to indicate. And up until now, that’s been true. I’ve never lied to a City official before, not about anything real. But the Party’s involvement in what I’ve seen tonight sickens me. I trust the mysterious Amy-but-not-Amy far more than the men in my living room.

  “What can we do?” Papa asks, rising from his chair as though ready to help. I see what Doctor Black cannot: that his every move is an act of protection. For us. In that moment I love him fiercely, admiring his calm, the carefully arranged sympathy on his kind face.

  “Well,” the doctor says, addressing his words to the room at large, “there’s been a break-in at one of the hospitals. You know how it is.” He looks at Papa glumly.

  Papa nods as if to say, Ah yes, the hospitals.

  “People are … missing. We were hoping you could help us clean things up.” The doctor looks as though he’s trying to figure out how much to say. “By telling us if you’ve seen anything out of the ordinary. Or anyone.”

  A long, long silence swirls through the space, like smoke from some giant, blown-out candle.

  Then the doctor looks me in the eye, and I know he knows. My eyes dart to the guards, who watch us impassively. One has eyes of a soft brown color; the other’s are blue. It is hard to imagine that either is capable of the demon red glow I’ve seen several times tonight. Right now they appear to be nothing more than Doctor Black’s bodyguard, there to ensure an important official comes to no harm on his nightly rounds. But it’s much more than that.

  The doctor looks down at his toes for a moment, then through the entryway to our mugshots by the door. Our names march across the bottoms in dark, severe type: ELIJAH BARRIGAN, ENOCH BARRIGAN, NAIYA BARRIGAN, PHILLIP BARRIGAN.

  “Naiya,” he says, still staring into the hall, as though refreshing himself on our names. His head whips back unexpectedly. “I want us to be completely honest with each other. Is there anything you want to tell me? Anything at all?”

  My pulse picks up speed, and as though they scent my fear, the guards by the door key in on my throat. Their eyes begin to gleam, like iron heating up. Again, Papa catches my eye. This time the look is one of warning.

  “No,” I say. “Nothing.”

  “Whe
n is the last time you saw Mrs. Lotting?”

  Lotting. Amy’s married name. Doctor Black’s new tack makes me jump internally.

  “Tuesday, I think.” I look up at the ceiling innocently, trying to think when I was at Amy’s house last. It seems like it’s been about three days, and today is Friday. “Yeah, Tuesday.”

  “Mmm.”

  The sound is contemplative, but I hear the anger behind it. What is he really asking? He must be aware of the existence of Amy’s strange double, just as he obviously knows she’d escaped: The body in the aircar guarantees it. It is equally certain that he knows we saw it all, or he wouldn’t be here. The only question remaining is whether or not he knows about the keycard, which feels like it’s burning a hole in the pocket of my pants. It’s tempting to tell him everything, give him the card, get it over with and hope for leniency. But Papa’s face says otherwise.

  “Did she say anything to you?”

  “Not anything that you’d be interested in,” I say, realizing immediately how impudent I sound. “Sir.”

  The doctor says nothing.

  “Why, is something wrong with her?” I hope he’ll take the anxiety in my voice as a sign of worry for my adopted sister. It is, partially.

  “No, no.” The doctor seems distracted now. He seems to have run out of questions, but is clearly reluctant to ask anything more direct for fear of giving himself away. For the first time in hours, I taste hope.

  And then the doctor is moving, nodding for the guards to follow. They look slightly disappointed. They’d scented blood and now the chase is off.

  “If you do see Mrs. Lotting,” says the doctor, approaching the entryway, “please don’t say anything about our visit. We wouldn’t want her to worry.”

  Silence.

  “And stick around,” he adds, looking at each of us in turn. “I might have more questions, so it’s probably best to stay here in the Upper City for a few days. At home, in fact.” He looks at Papa, clearly trying to sound reasonable. “All right, Elijah?”

  “Of course,” says Papa soothingly, as though he hasn’t heard the threat in the words. He opens the door, dipping his head as each man exits. Doctor Black pauses at the threshold.

  “Everything for everyone,” he says finally, formally. His eyes linger on me. I try to keep my face blank as we deliver the traditional chorused response: “And nothing for ourselves.”

  Then he is gone.

  * * * * *

  The long exhale seems to come from everyone at once.

  It is only when Papa turns back to the room that I can see how much the visit has cost him. Reaching behind his workbench into the cubby where only his hands are ever allowed, he pulls out a bottle of amber-colored liquor, pours himself a small glass, and drinks it in one long swallow. Whiskey. The hand that wipes his mouth is shaking.

  He turns back to his workbench, pulling out a roll of thin gauze and a pencil, which he snaps in half. Then he pours another, larger measure of whiskey into the glass. “Come here, Enoch.”

  Enoch moves forward as if in a daze, taking the alcohol Papa offers with his good hand, draining it without comment.

  Papa gestures grimly to his son’s finger. Enoch nods, seeming to understand, and Papa reaches down and wrenches it into place. It snaps audibly in the still air. Aside from a twitch in his lower jaw and a sharp exhalation of breath, there is nothing to betray Enoch’s pain. Papa quickly presses the pencil underneath and wraps the gauze around it, then wraps it snug against the finger next to it. Then he turns to me.

  We stare at one another for a long moment.

  “Papa - ”

  “Wait.” He says it softly, but with a finality I don’t dare question. Turning to his workbench, he sweeps wires and tools and spare parts to the floor with a reckless arm. I catch a brief glimpse of the half-cleaned circuit board I’d hoped to see a lifetime ago. Then he drops beneath the bench and pries up a section of the metal floor. I watch in amazement; beneath the plate is a dark, descending hole, big enough for a person to slip through.

  In the small cubby to the side of the hole sit two objects. He pulls the top one out, a small metal case with a shiny metal top. Flipping open the cover, he exposes a mass of gears and cogs, ticking and whirling. Adjusting the dials and knobs along the edge, he sets it on the cleared workbench. A plaintive electric whine emanates from the case before it falls silent, and Papa turns back to us.

  “I’ve never seen that before,” I say, at a loss.

  “I’ve never needed it before,” Papa says shortly.

  “What is it?”

  “You remember the fly, right?”

  I think back. A lesson at this very workbench: Papa handing me a magnifying glass, holding something underneath it with tweezers. Beneath the glass, I saw a tiny insect, it’s body glinting with the slightest green, its wings a thin film of black vein and opalescence. Hair-thin legs and a tiny proboscis poking out from the bottom of its ugly head. Where its eyes ought to have been, however, were two tiny metal mounds, each perforated with a cluster of minute holes.

  A listening device. “You think they left one here?” I ask, astonished.

  “I know they did,” Papa says, “and I can only create a few minutes of interference before I have to shut that off, or it won’t look like a normal blip in the system. It probably won’t anyway. They’re already watching us tonight, so talk fast. What happened?”

  I tell him the story in a few short sentences, producing the keycard and handing it to him.

  “No, keep it.” He pushes the card back toward me. “Find out where it leads.”

  My mouth turns to desert. “What?”

  “You have to leave, Naiya. You have to get out of here.”

  “But they told us to stay – ”

  “That’s exactly why you need to go. They know what you saw,” Papa says, cutting me off once more. “The only reason they didn’t arrest you tonight is that you have something they need. Something you’re going to find. But they’ll be coming, Naiya, and you can’t let them have it. At any cost. Enoch, you’re going with her. Keep her safe.”

  Only then does it occur to me how strange it is that Papa keeps talking to me, treating his own son as though he’s secondary, my protector. Enoch just stares, his face impossible to read.

  “Listen, Naiya, and listen closely.” Papa grabs my shoulders. “I know this will be hard for you to hear.”

  I look at Papa, attempting to ignore the blood that pounds through my ears. It seems as though every part of my body has started moving at once, even though I’m standing in the same place. “I’m listening.”

  “You aren’t who you think you are. Before you became a Barrigan, your surname wasn’t Zhou.” The mention of my mother’s surname startles me.

  “What are you talking about? My mom – ”

  “It wasn’t her name either,” he says hurriedly. “Song’s family name was Legerdemain. So is yours.”

  I stare.

  “Naiya, didn’t you ever think it was strange that you were reassigned to a family that already had three children? The Party sometimes gives a girl to a family where the mother has just died, but we had Amy. There was no reason. Didn’t you ever wonder?”

  I nod slowly.

  “I asked for you.” Papa states this earthshaking fact simply. “I wanted you. I’m your guardian because I was the only one in the City who knew who you were.”

  “So they just … gave me to you?”

  “I had to pull a lot of strings. A lot,” Papa says. “But I knew your mother. We – we were fighting on the same side. It doesn’t matter. The important thing is you’re here now, I trained you, you’re ready.”

  “Ready for what?” I ask incredulously.

  “Honey, I’m so sorry. I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but you are more important than you could possibly know. I probably should have told you everything sooner, but I was afraid, and now we don’t have time. Go get the knapsacks.”

  I stare woodenly, and do n
ot move.

  “Get the knapsacks,” he repeats sharply. “Now!”

  Stung into motion, I grab both my bag and Enoch’s, still sitting by the door. Bringing them back to the workbench, I wait for Papa, who is removing several things from our small icebox: bread, cheese, apples, a few canteens. He puts them into the waiting knapsacks, then reaches behind him and pulls the second object out of the hole, shoving it in as well and cinching both bags shut. My mind spins like a top.

  “Papa,” I protest, “what about Amy?”

  “Amy is fine. Perfectly all right,” Papa assures me. “Pip and I just came from there.” I remember belatedly that we’d had plans with her for dinner tonight, that I’d skipped them for the chance to spend time with Enoch. I feel an overwhelming remorse, missing the opportunity to see them. Now I might never get the chance to make it right.

  “Are you listening to me, Naiya?” Papa says sharply.

  My head jerks up. I realize he’s been saying something.

  “Listen,” he says again, looking me in the eyes. “Just think of it as another mission. Just another name to find.” He hands me a slip of paper, and I take it, putting it in my pocket. The scene is so familiar, and so different.

  “Papa – ”

  He shakes his head, forestalling protests. He pulls both Enoch and I to him, hugging us close. To my shock, he then hugs Pip before handing him off to Enoch.

  “We’re taking Pip?” Enoch asks quietly. He looks disbelieving more than shocked.

  “He isn’t safe here. Not anymore. Now go.” He gestures at the hole underneath the workbench.

  Pip’s lip is trembling. I stand frozen, dry-eyed, as though turned to stone. “What will you do?” I whisper.

  “I’ll be all right,” Papa says, his voice a promise. He looks at each of us in turn, reaching with a gentle hand to wiping a tear from Pip’s cheek. “I’ll see you again.”

  For the first time, it occurs to me to wonder what Papa went through when he lost his first child to the tithe. For of course he must have, though he was lucky enough to have three more children afterward. Even so, he’d suffered more than his share of grief: wife dead of tuberculosis soon after Pip was born, daughter disappeared, youngest son Marked. I wondered if there had ever been a time when he had been truly happy, had everything he wanted.