PRESSIA
DUTY
Fedelma leads Pressia down a long hall with a stone floor. Each door they pass has a small window. Pressia glimpses labs, people curled to delicate scientific work—test tubes, machinery. “What are they doing?” she asks.
Fedelma stops and looks at her. “You know what they’re doing, Pressia.”
“No,” she says, “I don’t.” But some part of her wonders if she just doesn’t want to know, if the truth is too chilling, and so she’s shutting out the obvious.
“Surely you can imagine our greatest challenge and how we might overcome it. You’ve seen the children. You know what we can do with mere vines. You’ve seen the boars in the fields, right? Haven’t you?” She seems angry suddenly. “And me. You know my lot.”
Pressia glances at Fedelma’s stomach and now she understands: Fedelma hasn’t chosen to be pregnant. It’s her duty. How many children has she had? How long will this go on? “I didn’t go to school,” Pressia tells her. “All I know is what my grandfather told me. He was a flesh-tailor, a mortician. How would I know what’s going on in labs?”
“You came here for a formula. You had one of the most potent vials of bionanotechnology known to man. Do you expect me to believe you don’t understand what we’re doing here? This is child’s play compared to what you dug up.” She starts marching down the hall again.
Pressia reaches out and grabs Fedelma’s arm. “I don’t know. I swear.”
Fedelma’s eyes search Pressia’s face. She still doesn’t completely believe Pressia, but she says, “Willux saved Newgrange, the holy site. He gave Kelly word that it would be spared. Only thirty of us made it inside of the mound in time.”
“But there’s all this land, this building, and labs, right? What about all of that?” Pressia wants to know how advanced these people are. Can they repair an airship and get it off the ground?
“Willux spared a three-mile radius. And you must know how the Detonations worked. You can’t play dumb on that score.” She glances at Pressia’s doll-head fist. “You lived through them, didn’t you?”
“I barely remember,” Pressia says. “But it comes to me in flashes. I know there were massive cyclones of fire that swept through. And the ash blew in and there was black rain. Did anyone outside of Newgrange survive?”
“Another twenty survived that, making fifty, but with disease, we dwindled again.”
“And what did Kelly do then?”
“Everything he could.”
“This place,” Pressia says, “it’s not like where we come from. The ash eaters, for one thing. He’s invented all kinds of things, hasn’t he?” The more information that Pressia can get out of Fedelma, the more she has to share with El Capitan and Bradwell. If she wants Bradwell to forgive her, maybe the first step is making him see that she’s valuable, that they still need to rely on each other if they’re going to make it back.
“Well, he had a background in the genetic engineering of plants and molecular-level cloning. He created agrifacture, which is why our vines work as a defense team.”
“Cloning.” She knows what this means, in a general way. Replications. Copies. “How do you do it?”
“We use our DNA to create clones,” Fedelma explains. “But each embryo still needs a womb to develop inside of. All of the women do their part. I will carry babies to term until, eventually, I can no longer do it; even if I die in the process, it’s worth the risk.” And then she adds, defensively, “We can’t risk dying out!”
Pressia feels a chill spike up her backbone. Look in a looking glass. Look for a match. Find yourself! Find yourself! Don’t be the last! The children meant it literally. Find a match; find a copy of yourself. Pressia has slowed her pace. She’s thinking of the children’s faces—the ones that were nearly mirror images. Finally she stops walking altogether.
Fedelma turns around. “Are you judging us? We all make sacrifices. It’s the only way to be of worth!”
“I’m not judging you. I understand sacrifices,” Pressia says. She thinks of Bradwell. She wasn’t willing to sacrifice him, though that’s what he wanted. “The boars…” she says, trying to piece it together.
“Some gene splicing, yes. They’re engineered to be domesticated like cattle but vicious too. If need be, they will attack on our behalf.”
“Attack who?”
Fedelma walks up close. Though no one is around, she lowers her voice. “You have to be careful. Beyond the three-mile radius, the territory we have marked with the vines, there are those who want in—who’d kill for what we have here.”
“Who are they?”
“They’re not unlike what you have in your part of the world.”
Pressia says, “How do you know what we’ve got in our part of the world?”
Fedelma whispers, “He spared us. He knows we’re here. He keeps tabs on us, and probably others.”
“Who? Willux?”
“We’re lucky to be alive at all.”
“Willux and Bartrand Kelly are still in contact? They’re still…friends?” Pressia squeezes her eyes shut and shakes her head. “Willux knows you’re here! Alive!”
“Shhh,” Fedelma says. She takes Pressia’s hand and places it on her stomach. Pressia feels a thump from within. “We have the future to protect. You understand, don’t you?” Fedelma says.
Pressia pulls her hand away. “Where’s Bartrand Kelly?”
Fedelma sighs. “He wants you to wait for him.” She continues down the hall.
Pressia follows her. They turn a corner and stop at the door to a small room. Fedelma says, “Here. You’ll wait.” She pulls open the door.
Pressia’s stomach flips. Will Bradwell be here? Is he going to speak to her? Will he even look at her? She tries to think of something to say to him but can’t imagine where she’d even start. She steps inside.
The room is small—just an oversized closet really. No furnishings. El Capitan is there, leaning against the wall with Helmud resting his head on his shoulder. One of El Capitan’s eyelids is puffed and red—the early shades of a black eye. El Capitan straightens up and says hello in a formal way. Helmud smiles. “Hello,” he says.
She’d been so afraid to see Bradwell she’d forgotten that everything between her and El Capitan is strained. He professed his love for her and kissed her. Where do they go from here? She feels stiff and shy. El Capitan glances at her and then quickly away.
“Hi,” she says. She feels flushed. What El Capitan did was so dramatic, so full of emotion. It was brave. This is what she admires about him—and that he’s tough and yet has a tender heart. She still remembers the kiss.
“Kelly will be here directly,” Fedelma says, and she shuts the door.
“Bradwell isn’t here. I don’t know where he is,” El Capitan says, as if she’d only want to see Bradwell and not him.
“I’m glad to see you two,” Pressia says. “You’re not bleeding to death. It’s a real improvement.”
“And we’re all golden,” El Capitan says, “like movable statues.”
“Golden,” Helmud says.
“Yeah,” Pressia says, looking at her arms.
“It looks good on you,” El Capitan says and then looks down at the floor.
“Cap,” Pressia says, though she’s not sure what she should say next—I hope it’s not strange between us? I hope we can still…
But then the door opens again. Pressia knows it’s Bradwell before she turns. The deep rustling of his wings is noisy. She hears Fignan beeping at his boots.
“I’ll wait out here.” It’s his voice.
She turns and sees his quick dark eyes, his wind-struck cheeks, the gold tinge to his skin too. The wings are long and ragged—but also muscular and beautiful.
“No room for me in there,” he says to a caregiver at his side, a nervous young man. “Can’t you see that?”
“Sorry, so sorry,” the caregiver says. “I’ll wait with you out here.”
Before the door swings shut, Bradwell looks at Pressia like he wants to say something. She opens her mouth to ask him how he’s doing. But he turns before she has the chance. The door closes and he’s gone.