Twinmaker

20

THE TWO MEN jumped at Gemma’s command. Clair did too, because it was only beginning to sink in that they had just seen someone die. Dylan Linwood had been standing in front of her one second, gone the next. How was that possible?

Jesse took her arm and guided her through the house. After the sitting room was a flight of stairs leading down to a cellar shrouded in gloom. There was an old-fashioned wall telephone anchored to one wall, then a dining room and a Stainer kitchen, complete with stovetop and sink and cupboards for preparing the ingredients that would become actual food. The air smelled stale, though.

“In here,” called a voice from the kitchen. “Come clean yourself up and let me take a look at you.”

Silhouetted against the rear window was a figure in an electric wheelchair. A woman in her seventies with a halo of gray hair, spine straight not slumped, wearing a comfortable pantsuit in peach. Her hands were long boned and thickly veined, and her nails neatly trimmed. She was watching them with keen attention.

“Aunt Arabelle?” said Jesse in a cracked voice.

She nodded. “Wash your hands in the sink. There’s a towel for your faces. Then come and sit with me.”

Jesse nodded and used the tap first. While she waited, Clair felt the bright gaze of the old woman studying her closely.

“Are you Dancer?” Clair asked.

“That’s what they call me,” the woman said. “My real name is Arabelle. Are you a friend of Jesse’s?”

“Uh . . . kind of. I’m Clair, Clair Hill. I don’t think Zep and I are supposed to be here.”

“None of us are, Clair. Wash up and I’ll explain.”

It was Clair’s turn to use the tap, and she felt relief that the woman’s gaze was temporarily off her. Her hands shook as she splashed cold water onto her face. In her mind she saw the fireball over and over again, Dylan Linwood’s compact figure vanishing into it, lifted momentarily off his feet as though about to take flight.

He hadn’t even had time to look surprised.

She leaned her elbows on the sink and let the trembling spread from her hands, up her arms, and into the rest of her body. It was okay to feel shock, she told herself. No one was hurrying her anymore. She could take all the time in the world if it made her feel better.

It did.

When the shakes passed and she was done with the towel, she found Jesse kneeling and weeping into the old woman’s shoulder. Arabelle—Aunt Arabelle—Dancer . . . Clair hadn’t decided yet how to think of her . . . Arabelle put an arm around him and patted his back.

“Shhh,” she said softly, as though to a child. “I know what happened, and I’m very sorry. We all are, Jesse. You have to be brave. Those psychopaths in VIA have been up to no good again.”

“VIA blew up Dylan Linwood?” asked Clair in disbelief. “Who says it wasn’t an accident?”

“I do.” Gently but firmly, Arabelle pushed Jesse from her. “Take off my shoes, dear boy. She needs to understand what she’s gotten herself into.”

I haven’t gotten myself into anything, Clair wanted to say. Then she wondered if that was entirely true. It had all started with Zep and Libby and led via Improvement to Dylan Linwood’s door. Maybe she could have walked away, but she hadn’t. And here she was, watching Jesse crouch down, tug the old woman’s traditional paraplegic blanket aside, and expose a pair of brown slip-ons.

Jesse pulled the left one off first, revealing a thin but perfectly ordinary foot. The right shoe was next.

When he had finished, he sat back and stared resentfully at Clair, as though daring her to argue with what she saw.

Clair saw a thin but perfectly ordinary left foot. A second one. She clenched her fists to stop them shaking again.

“I wasn’t born with two left feet, believe me,” said Arabelle. “In fact, I used to be a very good dancer. But I can’t walk on it now, thanks to d-mat. The entire leg is out, and my hip, too. I tell myself I’m lucky a blood clot didn’t kill me the very moment it happened. But I don’t feel lucky. I feel trapped and ignored by a system that doesn’t like to acknowledge its failures. It prefers to sweep them under the rug like they never existed. Well, Clair, some of us won’t be swept away so easily. Jesse’s father wasn’t one of them, God take his precious soul. None of us will be.”

“WHOLE,” said Clair again, feeling as though she had fallen down Alice’s rabbit hole and landed in a nest of vipers. “That’s who you are. You’re terrorists.”

“Jesse, you can put my shoes back on. My toes are getting cold.”

Jesse wiped his nose on his sleeve, smudging his face with ash anew. Clair was relieved when the feet were hidden. They made her feel queasy—not in a getting-sick way, but as though the world had just shifted underneath her in a subtle and utterly disconcerting way.

Gemma came into the kitchen to wash her hands. Her curly hair was full of scraps of plaster and plants, like urban camouflage. Tiny drops of blood matted the front of her shirt.

“Your boyfriend will be all right,” she said. “Just a scratch.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” said Clair emphatically. “Why are we here and not in a hospital?”

“We’re avoiding the peacekeepers.”

“Why?”

“They’re nothing but glorified security guards in the service of the OneEarth government. And what does OneEarth rely on to keep the peace? D-mat. If you think they’ll have our best interests at heart, you’re living in a dream.”

“You think VIA killed Jesse’s dad because he said bad things about d-mat?” Clair said. “That doesn’t make any sense. He was paranoid but he wasn’t dangerous.”

“You’re not the only one who thinks we’re terrorists,” said Arabelle. “That gives the PKs carte blanche to do whatever they like to us.”

Clair refused to let the matter go just because someone told her to.

“So what happens now? Do you expect me and Zep to hide in here with you?”

“It makes sense to sit tight until the cleanup’s over,” Gemma said in a businesslike fashion, as though people being blown up was all in a day’s work. “When we can, we’ll move out in ones and twos. Hopefully, there’ll be no reprisals.”

Arabelle leaned forward and touched Clair lightly on the shoulder. “You go see to your friend. I need to talk with Gemma alone. Jesse, don’t worry. You’ll be looked after, I promise. We won’t abandon you.”

He nodded and walked like a robot out of the kitchen. Clair hesitated, then followed. The way the two women from WHOLE were looking at her, it was clear they wanted her gone so she wouldn’t overhear. Zombie girl, she thought. They obviously weren’t telling her the entire truth, but that look was hard to contend with.