Scarecrow

Squad Two’s time came down every day for two weeks.

I watched it happen on the board at the edge of field two. Everybody did. It was the only thing anybody in the cave talked about, after the Meridian. Squad Eight’s time sat at the top, where Okafor had written it on the last day of the month. 4:12. In her small square hand. And under it, every evening, there was a new time for Squad Two, and every evening it was a little closer.

6:02.

5:48.

5:31.

5:10.

4:55.

”He’s going to do it,” said Liam, at dinner, on the second Friday, with his mouth full. He didn’t sound pleased. He didn’t sound anything. ”He’s going to beat Luna’s time. Watch. By next week.”

”He can’t,” said Toby. ”Not the way she did it. You can’t freeze the jungle unless you’re Luna.”

”He’s not doing it the way she did it,” said Seraphina.

She was looking down the long room at the Squad Two table. So was I.

Squad Two was eating the way you eat when you’ve been told you have six minutes. Fast, and without talking, and without looking up. Brock Haddon had his left arm in a sling. Pulse, a small dark girl from the river floors, had a bandage round her head. The boy who’d taken Fenn’s place, Tam, was asleep. Sitting up, with his fork in his hand, asleep.

At the head of the table, Sigmund Friese was eating nothing at all. He had a slate in front of him, and he was writing on it. Times. Lines. Arrows.

And at the far end, by herself, Risa was eating with her left hand.

Only her left hand.

Her right was in her lap, under the table, in the sleeve of her training shirt, which she’d pulled down over her fingers.

I looked at it. I didn’t mean to. I just looked, the way you’d look at anything that was being hidden.

And then I stopped looking, because she’d told me, once, at the fern: I’ll know if you do.

She came to the gym on the Saturday anyway.

Four o’clock. The way we’d done it for two weeks. The one lamp, the rubber floor, the heavy bags hanging still on their chains. She was already there when I came in, standing in the middle of the floor in her gray training clothes. Barefoot.

With her right sleeve pulled down over her hand.

”Shoes off,” she said.

I didn’t take my shoes off.

”Risa.”

”Shoes off, Lucas. We’re doing kicks today. I’m going to—”

”What happened to your arm?”

She stopped.

She stood there in the middle of the rubber floor, and the lamp hummed, and for a long moment she didn’t say anything at all. Her face was perfectly still. The sharp, narrow, Friese face. Like Sigmund’s.

”Nothing,” she said.

”You’ve been eating left-handed for four days.”

”I’m practicing.”

”You’ve had your sleeve down for four days. In the mess. On the field. In the sim.” I didn’t move. ”You haven’t put your right hand on the fern stand once. You always put your right hand on the stand when you sit down.”

Risa looked at me.

”You’ve been watching me,” she said.

”I watch everything.”

”You promised—”

”I haven’t looked,” I said. ”Inside. I promised I wouldn’t, and I haven’t. Not once.” I looked at her sleeve. ”But I don’t need to look inside to see a sleeve.”

She didn’t say anything for a long time.

Then she held out her right arm. And pulled the sleeve back.

I’d seen burns before. Father’s hands, from the welding, in the early years. Seraphina’s palm, from Liam’s sleeve. The suit bay, Odell, his burned hands all the way to the wrists.

I’d never seen one like this.

It started on the back of her hand, between the knuckles, and ran up over her wrist and along the inside of her forearm almost to the elbow. Red. Raised. Angry. But it wasn’t a patch, the way burns usually are. It wasn’t round. It branched. A thick red line up the middle, and off it, on both sides, smaller lines, and off those, smaller ones still, splitting and splitting, all the way out to the edges, fine as hairs.

Like a tree.

Like a river from above.

Like a fern.

I’d seen that shape before. In Father’s books. On the page about storms.

”Lightning,” I said.

Risa didn’t say anything.

”That’s a lightning burn. That’s what it looks like when lightning goes through someone.” I looked at her. ”It’s not yours. You can’t burn yourself with your own. You told me. It doesn’t work like that.”

”No,” said Risa.

”Then whose—”

I stopped.

She was looking at me with her light gray eyes. Very steady. Daring me to say it.

I didn’t need to.

There were only two people in the cave who could make lightning.

”It’s a technique,” said Risa. Flatly. As if she was reading it off a slate. ”He’s been working on it since Luna’s run. Arc. That’s his callsign, so that’s what he’s calling it. He makes the bolt, and I catch it. I’m the—” She stopped. ”I’m the conductor. I take it into me and I shape it and I send it on. Bigger. Further. Wherever he wants. It’s like—” She lifted her good hand and made a shape in the air. ”Like the lens Luna made you. For the moon. He makes the light. I bend it.”

”And it goes through you.”

”It’s supposed to go round me. Along the outside. That’s the whole point. I’m supposed to hold it on the outside, like a glove.” She looked at her arm. ”It went through on Tuesday. Just once. He’d made it bigger than before. He wanted the range. For the sim. For the constructs at the back of the ring.”

”For the time.”

Risa didn’t answer.

”He wants to beat four-twelve,” I said.

”He needs to beat four-twelve.” She pulled her sleeve back down, hard. ”You don’t understand. You’ve never—” She stopped. Started again. ”Father came to the observation room. On the day of Luna’s run. Did you know that? He was there. Behind the glass. Next to the General.” She swallowed. ”And afterward, he went down to Okafor’s office. And Siggy was outside, waiting, because he always waits, in case Father wants to see him. And Father came out, and walked past him, and stopped. And said one thing.”

”What?”

”Why is the Windsor girl’s squad two minutes faster than yours?” Risa’s voice didn’t change at all. ”And walked on.”

I didn’t say anything.

”It’s on the list,” said Risa. ”The one in his locker. Things Father noticed. It’s the second thing in two years.” She looked at the floor. ”He’s been running Squad Two at night since. After lights-out. On the Town course. In the dark. Three times. Four. Brock’s arm. Pulse’s head. Tam’s so tired he falls asleep standing up.” She breathed out. ”And me.”

”Does he know?”

”Know what?”

”About your arm. That it went through.”

Risa was quiet for a long time.

”I told him it was fine,” she said.

”Risa—”

”I told him it was fine. I told him I’d caught it. I went to the showers and ran cold water on it for an hour and I didn’t go to the infirmary, because Halloway writes everything down, and if she writes it down it goes to Okafor and it goes to Crane, and then it goes to Father, and then Father knows that Siggy hurt me, with the stain, in front of a Windsor—” Her voice cracked. Just once. Like Luna’s had on the gallery. ”And then it’s not one thing on the list anymore. It’s the only thing. Forever.”

She stood there on the rubber floor in the dark, with her sleeve pulled down over her hand, breathing hard.

”You did the same thing,” she said. ”With Brock. You didn’t go to the infirmary. You didn’t tell anyone. You let Toby strap it in the dark.” She looked at me. ”So don’t you dare tell me to go to Halloway.”

I didn’t.

She was right. I had done the same thing.

”Can I look at it?” I said. ”Properly. Inside. Just the arm. Just this once.”

Risa looked at me for a very long time.

Then she held out her arm.

I looked.

Not all the way down. Not everywhere. Just the arm. The way she’d taught me to look at a fighter: loosely, the wires first, the way you’d look at a field at dusk.

And the wires were wrong.

Not broken. I’d been afraid they’d be broken. They weren’t. But the long bright nerve that ran up the inside of her forearm, the one I’d watched spark a thousand times in two weeks, flickering just before she moved, was flickering all the time now. Not bright. Not clean. A dull, ragged, constant sputter, all along the line where the burn was, like a lamp with a loose wire. Like the lamp over the fern, the day Sigmund came round the corner.

Under the skin, along the red branching shape of the burn, the little places where the nerve met the muscle were swollen. Hot. Angry. The lightning had gone through them on its way along her arm, and they were still shaking from it.

”It hurts,” I said. ”All the time. Doesn’t it. Not the skin. Under it. Like pins.”

Risa didn’t answer.

”And your fingers. The first two. They don’t do what you tell them. Not properly. They’re slow.”

”How do you—”

”I can see it,” I said. ”The wire’s still sparking. On its own. It’s not supposed to.” I looked up at her. ”It’ll get better. I think. It’s not broken. It’s like a bruise, but on the nerve. The book says they heal. Slowly.” I swallowed. ”But if it goes through again. On the same line. While it’s still like this—”

I didn’t finish.

Risa pulled her arm back. Slowly. And looked at it.

”You could fix it,” she said. Very quietly. ”Couldn’t you. You could make it stop.”

I thought about the white room. Living things.I’m a farmer, not a god.

I thought about Crane, not telling Fenwick to write it down.

”I don’t know enough,” I said. ”If I got it wrong, you’d never move those fingers again. I can’t take it back. Not on a person.” I looked at her. ”I won’t. Not on you. Not until I’m sure.”

Risa looked at me for a long moment.

Then she laughed. Not the sharp one. A small, cracked, surprised sound.

”You’re the only person in this whole cave,” she said, ”who’d say no to that. Everyone else would just try it.”

”Everyone else doesn’t know what’s in a nerve.”

”No,” said Risa. ”They don’t.” She rolled her sleeve down, gently this time. ”No kicks today.”

”No kicks.”

I found Sigmund that night.

I didn’t have to look hard. I knew where he’d be. After lights-out, on the Town course, in the dark, with his squad.

I went down the long corridor to field two in my boots and my sleeping shirt. The lamps over the field were off. The Town was a black shape at the end of it, shop fronts and bell tower and cracked fountain, with the steel arms folded in their doorways like sleeping birds.

And four people on the starting line.

Brock Haddon, with his arm out of its sling, holding it against his chest. The small dark girl called Pulse, with the bandage round her head. The boy called Tam, swaying on his feet. And Sigmund, at the front, with a stopwatch in one hand and a slate in the other.

Not Risa.

”Again,” said Sigmund. ”Three minutes’ rest. Then again. We were at four-forty on the last one. We lost eight seconds at the fountain. Haddon, you were slow on the left—”

”Friese.”

They all turned round.

I was standing at the edge of the field, in the dark. I don’t know what I looked like. Tall, probably. And very still.

Brock went white. Pulse took a step back. Tam just blinked at me, as if I might be a dream.

Sigmund didn’t move.

”Dask,” he said. Cool. Careful. Too fast. ”This is a Squad Two drill. You’re not—”

”Send them to bed.”

”You don’t give orders to my—”

”Send them to bed, Sigmund,” I said. ”Please. I need to talk to you. On your own. About your sister.”

He sent them to bed.

He didn’t want to. I watched him not want to. But he said go, flat, and they went, fast, past me, not looking at me, Brock last, with his arm against his chest. At the door, Brock stopped, and looked back at Sigmund, and then at me, and something went across his big red face that I didn’t understand. And then he went.

Sigmund and I stood on field two, in the dark, by the starting line of the Town.

”Well,” he said.

I told him.

Not everything. Not about Father, at Okafor’s door. Not about the list. Those were Risa’s, and I wasn’t going to give them away. But the rest. The arm. The branching red shape, like a fern. The wire that wouldn’t stop sparking. The two fingers that didn’t do what she told them.

It went through on Tuesday. Just once.

I told him what Halloway’s book said about nerves. And what would happen if it went through again, on the same line, before it healed.

He didn’t say anything. The whole time. He stood on the starting line with the stopwatch in one hand and the slate in the other, and looked at me, and didn’t say anything at all.

But his face changed.

I’d never seen Sigmund’s face change. Not at the comms drill. Not in the corridor by the fern, reading his list. Not when his father walked out of the observation room on the day he set the course record. It had always been the same. Narrow. Blank. Careful.

It changed now. All of it went. All at once. Like a lamp going out.

”She said it was fine,” he said. His voice was very small. ”She said she caught it.”

”She didn’t.”

”She said—”

”She said it was fine,” I said, ”because if she went to the infirmary, it would go on your record. And then to Crane. And then to your father.” I looked at him. ”She’s been eating left-handed for four days, Sigmund. So nobody would know you’d hurt her.”

The stopwatch fell out of his hand.

It hit the packed earth of the field with a small flat click and lay there, still ticking.

Sigmund didn’t pick it up.

”Four-twelve,” he said after a long time. Very quietly. Not to me. To the dark. ”Four minutes and twelve seconds. In the jungle. Nobody hurt. Nobody even ran.” He looked down at the slate in his hand. At the times on it. The lines. The arrows. ”I’ve been trying to work out how. For two weeks. Every night. I’ve run it in my head a thousand times. I can’t see how she did it.”

”She walked,” I said.

He looked up.

”She didn’t run,” I said. ”She walked in. Slowly. She knelt down and froze the ground. And then she waited, and she asked me what I saw, and I told her, and she told me what to do.” I looked at him. ”That’s all. That’s the whole of it. It wasn’t fast. It was the slowest run anybody’s ever done. It just didn’t have any mistakes in it.”

Sigmund didn’t say anything.

”And before she said yes,” I said. ”Before Okafor wrote her name down. She asked how many of us she was expected to bring back.” I paused. ”Okafor said all of them, every time. That was the number. That was the whole plan.” I looked at the slate in his hand. ”Is that on there anywhere?”

Sigmund looked at the slate for a long time.

Then he put it down. On the packed earth. Next to the stopwatch, which was still ticking.

”I can’t stand you,” he said. But it didn’t sound the way it used to. It sounded tired.

”I know.”

”I really can’t.”

”I know, Sigmund.”

He stood there in the dark for a long time.

”Where is she?” he said finally.

”The gym,” I said. ”Four o’clock. Every morning. She’ll be there tomorrow.”

I didn’t go to the gym the next morning.

I went to the fern instead, at five, the way I always did. And sat against the wall with my back to the rock and looked at the tenth frond, the dark one, the big one, the one Risa had given her lightning to.

At a quarter past five, she came round the corner.

Her sleeve was rolled up. All the way. The burn on her arm was bare, red and branching in the light of the swinging lamp. There was a clean white bandage round her hand, wrapped properly, the way Halloway wrapped things.

She sat down against the metal stand. She didn’t say anything for a while.

”He came,” she said finally.

”I thought he might.”

”At four. He stood in the doorway. For ages. Not coming in.” She looked at her bandaged hand. ”And then he came in. And he looked at it. And he didn’t say anything. And then he took me to Halloway.”

I looked at her.

”He took me,” said Risa. ”Himself. At four in the morning. He woke her up. He stood there while she wrote it down. All of it. Lightning burn, right forearm, cause: Squad Two drill, technique ARC, cadet F. Sigmund operator. He made her write that last part. She didn’t want to. He made her.” Her voice was very strange. ”And then he signed it.”

”It’ll go to Crane.”

”I know.”

”And your father.”

”I know,” said Risa. She was quiet for a long moment. ”He said—” She stopped. ”He said Squad Two doesn’t put its own on the floor. Not while I’m leading it.” She looked at me. ”That’s nearly what he said about you. After the locker room. To Okafor. Do you remember?”

”I remember.”

”He’s never said it about me,” said Risa. ”Not once. In fifteen years.” She looked at the fern. ”And then he said the night drills are over. And he said we’ll run it the slow way. And he asked me to tell him how Luna did it, because he wouldn’t ask her.”

She didn’t say anything else for a while.

Then, very quietly, without looking at me:

”You told him.”

”Yes.”

”You promised you wouldn’t look. And you didn’t. And then you went and found him in the dark and told him anyway.”

”Yes.”

Risa Friese turned her head and looked at me with her light gray eyes. For a long time.

”I’m very angry with you,” she said.

”I know.”

”Same time tomorrow,” said Risa. ”Bring your shoes off. We’re doing kicks.”

She turned back to the fern.

She was smiling. Not the sharp one.

Day 132. Squad Two.

Risa’s arm. Lightning burn. It branches. It looks like the fern.

The wire’s still sparking. It’ll heal if nothing goes through it again.

Sigmund signed it. Himself. ”Squad Two doesn’t put its own on the floor.”

He asked how Luna did it.

And under it, at the back, on the list:

6. Nerves. How they heal. How long. Everything. In case it’s ever somebody I can’t say no to.